


Black, Red and Black

by paxnirvana



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-25
Updated: 2010-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxnirvana/pseuds/paxnirvana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NPC-based story - plays off the Badlands elite kill quests for Alliance -"Tremors of The Earth" and Horde - "Broken Alliances", with nods to events in the incredibly terrible 'canon' Warcraft book, "The Day of the Dragon".</p><p>Will likely be totally invalidated by The Cataclysm. Read with that in mind. *sigh*</p><p>Warnings: Semi-graphic gore. Violence. Sex. Head-games. Cross-Faction fraternizing. Leatherworking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black, Red and Black

The lone orc stumbled as his boots slid a little on the round stones that filled the bottom of the dry wash. Pausing, he took careful stock of the change in terrain. He stood now at the head of the narrow canyon leading away from Lethelor Ravine, just about to began the descent out onto the flats of Dustwind Gulch below.

He took the moment to adjust the lay of the rope about his shoulders that led to the burden behind him. Heavy and unwieldy it was, but the improvised bone skid beneath had helped his progress greatly. With it, he had made good time despite the wound he bore, managing to drag the bundle of hide twice his bulk for several miles over the Ravine's relatively flat terrain.

This little downward slope was nearly the final obstacle between him and his goal. That and the ominously thickening red haze in the air that nearly masked the Gulch below.

The rising wind blew the stiffened brim of his hat up suddenly as he made to take a step forward, allowing the fine dust it carried up from off Dustwind Gulch into his eyes. Forced to duck his head, a low curse on his lips, he paused again. He carefully wiped his eyes clear, then drew the fine mageweave cloth he had tied over his nose and mouth a little tighter; the better to keep the stuff from finding its way into his lungs. Hard experience had taught him that preventing it from getting in there was far better than coughing up rusty spittle for days after and having his meals taste of nothing but dust the while.

The deepening of the red haze and the strength of the wind now tugging at his mail gear boded ill, rising toward the mountains behind him as it was. One of the rare, yet deadly, Badlands dust storms was definitely on the way. He hurried his steps a little more. Innate orcish hardiness or not, he preferred not to spend a chill desert night or three buried beneath his cloak by a tide of sand and dust when other, far more comfortable, options were near.

His burden he did not even consider leaving behind, no matter how slow the weight of it made his travel. It had taken far too much blood and effort to obtain to abandon it now.

The wind only grew stronger, the dust ever thicker as he trudged along, confirming his fear that it was not to be just a brief blow. The sun began to fade away behind the dust clouds, though it was not yet noon. He continued his descent, scanning the rough canyon walls ahead for landmarks. Noting each one carefully as he passed. If he lost sight of those walls, in this haze he would not be able to tell when the ravine opened out onto the more open, flat plain and smaller hillocks of the lowlands. To be caught in the open out there in a dust storm was to invite a slow, smothering death.

To his relief, it took less time than he thought it might to reach the last landmark; the great skeleton of a dragon that marked the edge of his camp. It loomed out of the reddish wind, stark and pale, - long ribs and broken skull the only part visible through the deepening gloom. He bared his teeth behind the cloth mask in a battle-grin for the welcome promise of his magicked, wind-warded tent tucked behind an ancient jokal tree just up the rise.

But as he passed the skeleton, he caught sight of a shape huddled in the lee of the skull. A familiar shape, if only from recent proximity. Robed. Hooded. The slim back was rounded under the force of the lashing wind and it clutched a pale-jeweled staff tightly in its folded arms.

It was the thrice-damned elf, of course. He'd hoped the foolish thing would have moved on already by the time he returned from his foraging trip. Wasn't it friendly with those two accursed dirt-digging dwarves camped a few ridges over? Two weeks he'd been burdened with its presence now. Why it was still here in these harsh lands when it was clearly a creature of cities and book-lined towers, by blood and thunder, he truly didn't know.

Pale blue eyes peered up at him from beneath the already wind-tattered edge of a flimsy cloth hood as he stopped before the huddled form. Dust streaked the beardless chin, already clinging to the corners of the elf's eyes and mouth, and had stained the loose locks of normally ashen hair that streamed past his face in the stiffening wind to a dull red.

"Oh. It is you," the elf said in the Common tongue, his normally melodious voice now little more than a harsh croak due to the dust-filled air.

"Fool," he said in the same with a growl, glaring down at the elf from beneath the protective brim of his sturdy leather hat. "Know you nothing of survival in these lands?"

The elf just blinked at him and coughed hard, sucking in more dust with each wracking breath he took with his face uncovered like that. The orc watched as he swayed where he sat, seemingly dazed after the fit.

He should not care what happened to this elf. A High Elf, for certain, with those clear blue eyes and moon-pale skin. Who was doubtless his enemy, if the company the elf kept from time to time was any indication; adventurers and dirt-diggers who bore badges of blue and gold.

Their presence annoyed him, but so far they had left him in peace. Which was fine with him.

These days his only concerns were his craft and his task; the path of war no longer interested him at all. He had seen far too much of it. Far too much to care for the fate of others – or even nations – any longer. Each being doomed themselves by the paths they chose. He was not arrogant enough to fear that one orc's axe lost would doom the bright, new Horde of Warchief Thrall's either. But it had likely already doomed itself by ignoring what went on behind those great black gates in the mountains to the west. This he knew.

By the scars on his body and the fresh pain in his side, he knew.

Because when what was building to the west finally broke free, these petty disputes would not matter any longer. To anyone.

He had finally given up trying to warn that posturing fool of an expedition commander in Kargath of the danger lurking to the west. He suffered the rare few fools who sought out his mastery only reluctantly. Sending them off to the farthest lands he could think of to gather patterns and goods in order to prove their skills to him on purpose. This ensured he trained only the most stubborn. And that they never stayed in the Badlands long once they mastered the techniques he had to teach. Which suited him fine.

The fewer adventurers roaming these lands the better. Between the ruthless dark iron dwarves, the grasping troggs and the brutal ogres who struggled over who owned most of it, there was little room for heroism here. And what territory those groups didn't claim belonged to black dragons. Black dragons...

He suddenly found himself reaching down. And before he could stop himself, he had dragged the elf to his feet with a hard grip on his narrow arm. He shook him once to get his attention. "Cover your nose and mouth or the dust will drown you," he ordered. When the elf only stared at him blankly, not even struggling in his grasp, he put both hands to the elf's cloak. With a yank, he pulled it open and found the soft, useless mage-robe that he expected beneath. Reaching down, he caught up the hem and ripped a broad strip from it before the elf could gather any wit to protest.

But a raised forearm blocked his hand when he went to tie the prize about the elf's face. A sign of life. Good.

"I see the wisdom of it now, orc," the elf said with another cough and a wary sideways look at him before taking the ragged strip of cloth from his hand and tying it about his own face. Too little, too late, most likely, he thought. But with a shrug, he caught up the slack in the rope to his burden again and turned away, leaving the elf behind without another thought, odd impulse to aid already faded.

He got only a few steps up the slope before he noticed that the elf was following him.

"What?" he snarled over his shoulder in Orcish, not stopping his forward progress.

The elf stumbled up the rise behind him, floundering through the thickening drifts of sand even with the aid of his staff. "Why?" the elf shouted back in the same tongue.

The orc only shook his head, unable to explain even to himself, and plodded on. Up the small hill to his own camp in a small hollow, where the jokal tree provided at least some break from the relentless wind.

He shrugged free of the rope at the edge of camp, abandoning his burden just beside the heavy wooden table. Nothing would harm his prize in this storm; it was too heavy to fly away and not even the thieving ogre bands who plagued this land would be out in this kind of blow. His tent was still intact and undisturbed, he was glad to see, tucked with the reinforced spine of it toward the wind, in the lee of the broad tree. He stumbled toward it eagerly, wanting only to get away from the increasingly sharp lash of sand against his hide.

As he worked the tooth-and-loop closures of the inter-weaved flaps open, from the corner of his eye he saw the trailing shape had paused in the small lee of his burden, and stood swaying there to the wind's strong buffeting.

He snorted in disgust behind his mask. "Come," he shouted into the wind, gesturing forward with a wide swing of his arm. His words were likely lost, but the gesture at least was not. The shape came forward, sliding down the small slope, then falling against his shoulder as the elf stumbled over the nearly half-buried ring of rocks that had once been his fire pit.

He shoved the slim form inside the tent without another word. Then, pausing only to sweep his own hat from his head and beat it once against his thigh to dislodge the worst of the sand, he ducked inside himself.

The tent was a good-sized dome, made in the orcish style, the roof high enough for anyone but a Tauren to stand upright beneath it almost to the edges. With its spines reinforced by laminated strips of dragon claw and the outside layered with dragon scales, the tent was much stronger than it appeared. The gold he had spent on the be-spelled runecloth that lined it had been gold well spent indeed, he noticed gratefully, as the air inside was clear of dust despite the driving wind outside.

He swiftly worked the tooth-and-loops of the flaps closed again to complete the seal against the dust and wind again. His ears rang for a moment with the sudden lack of buffeting, and though the wind still howled outside it no longer howled directly into them, at least. The interior of the tent was dim, much of the sun's light blocked by the dust clouds already.

The elf had fallen to his knees near the pile of hides stored at the back of the tent and was coughing and hacking wildly into the cloth over his face.

He stripped the mask from his own face and took a deep breath of free air. Only a little dust, let inside with their entry, tainted it. It would sift away soon, he knew, under the influence of the spelled lining. But the elf was nearly gagging now, his coughs deep and raw as he fought the dust already lodged in his lungs. Resigned, he felt at his side for his water pouch then grabbed the small bucket that sat beside the front flaps.

He dropped the bucket beside the elf with a loud clatter onto the packed dirt of the floor and stripped off his heavy gauntlets. The elf glanced up at him from streaming eyes as the coughs wracked him. "If you puke, make sure to do it in there," he said, pointing to the bucket, then crouched beside the elf and yanked the piece of torn robe from his face. The elf made a feeble attempt to block him but the coughing was too intense, nearly doubling over his slim frame.

He caught the elf around the shoulders to brace him and placed the water pouch to his mouth. Then he squeezed some into him. "Rinse and spit," he ordered.

The elf hacked more and choked as the water filled his mouth, eyes rolling, hands rising to clutch at the pouch. He pulled it away and gestured toward the bucket. "Spit, then you can have more."

The elf spat into the bucket, red dust clogging it nearly into thick goo. He offered one more mouthful. The elf spat again after another moment and finally his choking eased, becoming gasps alone.

"Than...ank..." the elf tried to say. He put the water pouch to the narrow mouth a third time. Squeezed.

"Drink now," he said gruffly, annoyed by the words. A little water spilled from the sides of the elf's mouth as he gagged on it a moment before swallowing greedily.

He allowed him only a few deep swallows before pulling the pouch away. The slim shoulders shook slightly as the elf fought back more coughs, but he seemed to have himself under some control at last. He moved away, withdrawing his arm and rising to his feet again.

The elf glanced up at him sidelong, face streaked as if with blood where spilled water had made the red dust congeal. Pale and slender and frail seeming with their long tapering ears and winged brows. But he knew better. Elves were hardy adversaries. It would not do to underestimate this one in any way.

"I am in your debt, orc," the elf said, his voice still rasping and raw. He just snorted over the odd compulsion the other had to say such useless and obvious things as he went about tending to himself now.

He removed his pack and heavy belt, his axe and knives, then stripped off his mail spaulders and his mail shirt. They had both been damaged during his foraging and would require attention. He flexed his shoulders now that he was free of the armor's weight, sighing slightly for the small relief. The padded leather shirt beneath was also stained and torn, and the bandages around his waist were still stiff with old blood. But none new, he was somewhat relieved to find.

The wound ached as he moved. He ignored the reminder that he was not whole. For now.

"Why?" the elf asked again, watching him intently.

He looked over his shoulder, frowned, and then realized he would have to answer to shut the other up. "Your body would attract scavengers."

"Well that's a rather... candid reply." The elf lowered his head and gave a low laugh. Unwisely, as it turned into another hard bout of coughing and spitting into the bucket again. After a moment spent rummaging around in his supplies, he stalked back to the elf's side. A squeeze of the pouch wet the clean square of silk he'd retrieved before he offered it to the elf.

"Breathe through this for a time; the dust steals your water."

The elf took the cloth and complied, holding it over his nose and mouth obediently. The pale blue eyes watched him closely as he moved away. Still wondering about his actions, maybe. But he had no answer to that question even for himself.

He went about his work rather than ponder it. Putting his gear away. Reviewing the amount of supplies at hand. Water was the most critical. He had one more skin of water in addition to the half-empty one. A small sealed cask of water sat in the corner, his emergency cache. But with two of them, they would strain even that resource badly. Rare though they were, when they rose, the dust storms of the Badlands could sometimes rage for hands of days. They would have to be very careful with the water. Ration it closely.

It was to be hoped the elf carried at least one water pouch hidden under his cloak. He would search him, if necessary. But not yet.

The tent felt far smaller with two inside it instead of one. Normally he could cross the floor in three strides. Stretch out his bedroll there to sleep if needed, though he usually chose to sleep outside under the stars and the branches of the tree. Within there was even enough room to ply the fine-work parts of his craft. But the elf crowded it now, no matter how slim he seemed. The tall pile of tanned hides stored at the back that nearly reached the roof didn't ease that feeling either. They could be spread out to use as makeshift bedding instead of an impediment, at least, he mused. It wasn't as if it were cold, indeed the space was warming dramatically with another body beside his own within.

The elf half sat, half lay against the stack of hides. Eyes closed, head tilted against the pile as he held the still-damp cloth over his nose and mouth, breathing through it slowly and steadily. He paused beside him, staring down at him for long moments before the other finally broke the silence.

"Have you decided to toss me back into the storm now?" the elf said, opening those pale blue eyes to stare up at him without a trace of fear. As if he had not just suggested something so dishonorable and insulting that many orcs would consider killing him on the spot for it. His lip lifted in a sneer as he met the elf's gaze steadily, but that was all.

"Fool. Just move out of my way," he said, jerking a thumb toward the far corner of the tent. The elf rose to his feet with ease, confirming his suspicions that he was more hale than he appeared.

He spared the elf not another glance as he swiftly pulled apart and sorted the stack of tanned hides by type and grade. The work made the wound in his side ache and throb, sapping his strength. He stuck to his task firmly, shoving the pain away by sheer will. He spread out the thicker hides at the bottom, then piled the softer, thinner ones on top until he had created kind of a low platform of hide across the back third of the tent. Giving them a makeshift place to sit and sleep, at least, rather than allowing the stacked goods to cramp the already cramped space further.

When he turned back after finishing his work, breathing harder than he liked due to the need to hide the ache in his side, it was to find that the elf had been busy too; shedding his cloak and hood and folding them neatly away and adding his own meager supplies to the pile. There were two more water pouches, the orc noted quickly, both nearly equal in size to his own. And a small supply of bread and cheese, as well as a few pieces of dried fruit and a handful of small bottles that could contain potions.

The elf inclined his head to him, continuing to speak in the Orcish tongue. Displaying his clear mastery of it. "My humble contribution to your honorable hospitality."

He took the half-apology for what it was, grunting slightly.

"I am Garek Lightbourne. Might I ask my gracious host's name?" the elf continued with more of his annoying formality.

He fixed him with a sullen half glare. "Thorkaf Dragoneye."

"The Master Leatherworker," the elf said, nodding at the stacked hides, his gaze gone flat, his face impassive. "You work most often with dragonhide – black only or is it any dragonhide?"

"Yes," was all he said as he crossed the tent, slow-building suspicions suddenly peaking. Two quick steps put him in the elf's face. They were almost eye to eye, but only because, like so many of his people, his back had been bent at too young an age by the weight of armor and axe. Despite the dust, there was a scent about the elf he recognized after only a single, deliberate sniff. Sharp, like lightning. Bitter, like old ashes. Raw, like blood. And yet like none of them at all.

"You stink of dragon-magic," he said, hemming the elf in against the curved wall near the sealed flap of the tent. The breadth of his shoulders more than blocked any escape, nearly touching the tent walls near them. Not that there was anywhere to escape to if the elf were to try. But he did not. Thorkaf lifted one bare hand to the elf's chin. To his mild surprise, the elf held still and did not try to avoid the contact. Carefully, he tilted the other's head to the side and brushed the dust-stained hair away from his neck, baring the place just behind the long, tapered right ear.

The mark was palest gold against equally pale skin and would only be found if one knew what they were looking for: a tiny, perfect etching of a dragon. Unlike the other designs he had seen — mostly rampant or in flight with deadly claws extended, maws gaping — this one lay at rest, curled with nose over tail, its wings folded serenely against its back.

But there was no mistaking what it was.

"Dragonsworn," he said fighting back a snarl, releasing the elf's chin and letting the hair fall back down to cover the tell-tale mark again. To his credit, the elf did not protest or struggle. Only waited for Thorkaf to speak. He did not step back yet, instead staring into the elf's eyes from close range. Not above using his bulk and his race's reputation for violence to compel the other at all. "Which of them do you serve?"

The elf remained still, his back pressed to the wall of the tent, expression going cautious. "The name would mean nothing to you, Thorkaf Dragoneye."

He threw back his head and laughed. Sharp and bitter. At least the elf did not dare to play games of denial with him. Not when he had shown he obviously knew where to look for what he had found. Then he leveled another glare at the elf, making certain to bare his tusks. "By blood and thunder, not Kalaran's then. That venomous snake leaves little spine in his slaves. Try me anyway, elf, I might surprise you."

The elf's brows drew down in confusion, but he did not otherwise react to the name he had thrown out so casually. Inwardly, something clenched and wary in Thorkaf relaxed, though he was careful not to relax physically. Yet.

"How did you know?" the elf asked instead, clearly trying to delay a reply.

He just shook his own head. "Your master's name, elf."

After a brief hesitation, the elf spoke with obvious reluctance. "The one I serve is Krasus."

"The Red Consort." Thorkaf tensed, brief inner ease fleeing.

The elf's expression sharpened too, his gaze growing instantly guarded. Clearly he had not expected Thorkaf to recognize the name. Doubtless because it was the name of the mortal guise of his dragon master, Korialstrasz. He who was Alexstraza the Life-Binder's sole remaining mate.

"What business does he have in these lands?" He glared at the elf and let his hands go to fists at his sides. Well aware of the implied threat in the gesture.

The elf matched his glare, lifting his chin high. "You aided me this day, Thorkaf Dragoneye, and so I will say this much of my mission; it is of no threat to you, or to your Horde. And very soon I hope to be gone from this land forever."

Yet even as he flinched against the sting of the oldest lie, the elf's words assured him that he was still unmasked. The words were fair enough from one whose master stood nominally in opposition to the entire race of orcs. An opposition earned by the suffering and torment a clan of them had served upon his master's beloved and Queen more than two decades ago. Dragons had long memories to match their long lives. But what the Dragonmaw Clan had done would not have been possible at all but for draconic trickery from the start, Thorkaf also knew.

"Good," he grunted, forcing himself to relax and look away as if all his cares had been answered. Such honorless, deceiving ways he had learned from a master; and learned well in order to survive. He stepped back, allowing the elf some space again.

"My word is enough for you?" the elf said then, looking vaguely surprised, even a little unsettled.

"It is," Thorkaf said, jerking a thumb toward the bed of hides. "Now get yourself onto that and out of my way again."

To his vast relief, the elf showed no further urge to chatter. Indeed if his gaze hadn't fallen across the other from time to time as he re-arranged his things to buy more room and did a more thorough inventory of the food stores, he could almost have forgotten the other was even there.

The elf stayed well out of his way on the hides with his back against the rear spine of the tent. He had removed his low cloth boots and sat with legs folded beneath his robe, pale hands at rest on his thighs, head tilted back against the wall. He had even placed his folded cloak and hood beneath him, out of the way. His eyes were closed and his dust-smeared face was without expression. The long, crystal-topped staff he usually carried lay out of the way by his knees.

Truly, he could find nothing to complain about his guest's conduct so far. Other than the fact that he had made an enemy – Alliance, elf and Dragonsworn – his guest in the first place. Which was his own doing entirely. He tugged his own boots off and set both pairs near the front flap of the tent out of the way.

Taking his torn mail shirt in hand, Thorkaf finally sat himself on the edge of the stacked hides. They were firm enough to be useful for sitting, but not too hard, at least for sleeping, he judged. He kept his feet braced on the packed dirt floor and spread his roll of tools out on the hide beside him. He caught a glimpse as the elf opened his eyes and began to watch him.

Outside the wind howled and sand scraped uselessly against the hard layer of scales that protected the tent from destruction.

"Have we enough supplies to wait out the storm?" the elf asked, breaking the silence between them at last.

"If we are cautious, and it doesn't last over-long," Thorkaf said, testing the uniformity of a length of treated dragon-gut by drawing it taut through his fingers before he threaded it onto his needle. Cured dragon-gut was stronger than most metal wire, with the bonus effect of adding some small resistance to fire to the item it was used upon.

"I do have some… skill in conjuring necessities," the elf said cautiously. He eyed the elf sidelong as he measured out an arm's length of gut. Cut it at the mark with a special blade and coiled up the rest to store. "Water and bread, at least," the elf continued as Thorkaf remained silent. "It is poor fare, the bread, but enough to keep one alive."

So. The elf was a mage then. As he'd long suspected. A soft, ignorant city-dweller and a tool of the arcane. "Just not good with tents," Thorkaf said in reply, scowling as he focused on threading his enchanted thorium needle. Nothing less would do to pierce dragon-hide.

"No, not good with tents at all." To his mild surprise the elf gave a small, self-mocking laugh. "I thought to use my magic to shield me through it, but even just the start of the storm far outlasted my strength."

"Even the ogres burrow when the red winds come," Thorkaf said gruffly, bending over his work. He squinted in the dim light as he carefully fit the first replacement scale into place in the gap where the long claw had caught him – it would have torn him open, gut to throat, if not for the stout nature of his work. Dragon-sourced and dragon-spelled, the mail shirts he made, he thought with some pride, were often stronger than even dwarven-made thorium breastplates.

A soft word in a language he did not know was spoken beside him and then cool blue light washed over his shoulders, clearly illuminating the area of the stitches he was making.

He glanced up, startled. Behind him, the elf held his staff upright and it was the pale crystal at the top that was now shedding the welcome light.

"Hm. Better," Thorkaf said only, then returned to his work.

The elf held the spell until he finished his mending. It didn't take long to make the mail shirt whole and useful again. But when hunting dragons, one did not dare leave gaps or weaknesses. Or they would find them and use them against you. Without mercy or hesitation. That was a lesson he had learned long ago; respecting it had saved his life yesterday. As he began to gather up his tools and materials, the elf finally let the light fade away.

"But are you not wounded too, like the hauberk," the elf said quietly, laying his now darkened staff across his knees, his gaze carefully averted. "And will you mend yourself with dragon-gut as well?"

"Hardly!" Thorkaf laughed, short and mirthlessly, well aware of the pain in his side, displeased that the elf had noticed as well. Hot and constant, the wound nagged at him now that sanctuary had been reached and his guard relaxed some. Though he would never lower that guard enough to show how much the ache bothered him to this elf. He was still an orc, after all. "The scratch is doubtless already half-healed," he said with a dismissive shrug.

"But there are many subtle, unclean miasma that can infest wounds," the elf said quietly, gaze following him as he rose to his feet. "Especially dragon-wounds. As some small repayment for this shelter, will you allow me to ensure you are free of such?"

Filled repair-sack in hand, mail shirt over his arm, Thorkaf frowned over his shoulder at the elf. It was true that his side throbbed like fire now that his attention had been drawn from work to it. And the wound did cross his side to his lower back, which made it awkward to tend himself. Curse it.

"You speak truth," he said at last, reluctantly. "But I thought you mage, not healer."

The elf lifted those clear blue eyes to meet his suspicious gaze. "Dragon-wounds… those I have some experience tending. And I have been granted a spell from my master that can aid their healing greatly."

Red dragon magic was known as healing magic. It made sense. He held the elf's gaze. Narrowed his own eyes in warning. "I greatly dislike the idea of a dragon's spells being cast upon me, elf."

The elf held his gaze steadily. "I pledge that I will cast no spell upon you that has the intent to harm, Thorkaf Dragoneye."

"Hm." He used the time it took to put his tools away to consider the elf's words. The mail shirt went back on its stand on the far side of the tent. His side throbbed. He still had the spaulders to mend, but they could wait now, he decided abruptly, until after the elf tended his own damaged hide.

"Very well," he said, casting the elf a sharp look. The elf only nodded.

Rummaging through his supplies, he took up the half-empty water pouch again, his vial of healing salve and a few clean rags that could double as bandages; runecloth strips and scraps of mageweave left over from armor linings. The elf had lit his staff again, wedging the end between the hides and the far wall with the palely-glowing stone of it above them to give him enough light to work with. As Thorkaf returned, the other shifted to kneel near the edge of the makeshift bed where the orc would sit.

The elf had removed his robe with the wide flowing sleeves too and was clad now in only a thin billowing white shirt, its sleeves contained beneath elbow-high, hardened-silk bracers, and below it wore close-fitted pants of darkest red. The pants were richly embroidered with strange runes in a thread of a lighter shade of red and he wondered, suddenly, what spell they might contain. But mainly Thorkaf had to work to suppress a grimace of amusement for how scrawny the elf looked without at least the bulk of his mage's robes about him. The elf seemed almost half his size.

Thorkaf sat down beside the elf, with his feet flat on the floor and wounded side toward the mage. He laid the bundle of rags between them, within easy reach, and spread the other items beside them too.

Then he reached out past the elf's shoulder and gripped the closest rib of the tent. The position both getting his arm out of the way of the work the elf must do and lessening the chance that he would backhand the elf while the unpleasant task of cleaning the wound went on.

The elf bent toward his side as soon as he was settled, long brows drawn low, one hand extended warily. "These bandages…" the elf began.

Thorkaf grunted, reached his free hand to his belt and pulled the small, well-honed knife from the sheath there. He offered it hilt-first to the elf. "Do what you must," he said levelly.

He heard the small, startled intake of breath from the elf. Then smooth fingers brushed his rougher ones as the elf took the blade from his hand. He did not look down or tense as the elf lowered it to his side. The blade was short. He could do little damage to him with it if he tried. Yet they both were aware the test of trust this was.

The elf leaned close gain. And first he felt only small tugs and pulls as the stained bandages were cut carefully free. Then came the inevitable sting and tear followed by fiery surges of pain as the elf worked the cloth slowly free of his crusted wound with water. Thorkaf stared straight ahead, forcing himself to stay still through the excrutiating process by concentrating on taking slow, steady breaths. Then as the last of the bandages finally fell free, the elf's breath hissed in sharply.

Something touched his side for only a moment, but he bared his teeth in a snarl before he could stop himself. Just the elf's hand. And it pulled away at once, yet pain still lanced through him from the spot, hot and sharp. His hand tightened on the tent rib, making even the dragon-talon reinforced pole creak alarmingly. He gripped the edge of the hides beneath him with the other, barely keeping himself from slapping the elf away by main will. More pain flared in him, threatening to make him sway. Even the air on his wound felt like fire now, gnawing at it, but through it he felt the slow ooze of something down his side… blood? No, the stench rising from the uncovered wound now was nothing so clean as that of blood...

"How could you... it is corrupted," the elf said quietly, only confirming what he had already smelled. "The edges are black. Was it claw or fang?"

"Claw. Do… do as you must… with the blade…" Thorkaf managed the words through gritted teeth and sharply drawn breaths. Unbound and disturbed, the wound seemed to have come alive, threatening to eat away his will and soul by its own bitter fire now as if it resented how he had managed to ignore it for so long.

The elf was silent a while. Moving beside him. Doing things to prepare. With water and cloth. Thorkaf concentrated on his breathing. On keeping it slow. Steady. Trying to beat down the pain once more. But it would not be ignored again.

"I can heat this blade with magic," the elf said at last, "though it will be ruined after. And once it is done… only then can I cast my master's healing spell."

"Do it," Thorkaf hissed, feeling himself start to sweat, his muscles tremble.

After a few moments of steadying breaths more and listening to the elf's low chanting in the background, the elf laid a cool hand on his thigh. Leaned closer. Braced himself with one lifted knee, his back pressed beneath Thorkaf's raised arm.

Even now the elf could not go without courtesies. "Be ready; I fear this will hurt."

Thorkaf let out a snarling breath just as, quick and precise, the blade sliced. Searing as it went. He smelt burning flesh and seared corruption; his hide, the dragon's final revenge. The roar of pain he released nearly deafened them both.

He fisted his free hand hard in the dragonhide beneath him, nails digging deep. Forced his heels hard into the ground. Bowed his spine and threw his head back high and bit back any further sounds as the elf worked. It took forever, it seemed. The cutting and scraping. Until his arms shook with the strain and the sweat flowed.

Then the knife skidded away across the packed dirt of the floor – bloodied and blackened – as the elf discarded it. And the elf was speaking quickly in his own tongue, in rhythmic and lilting words of power, nimble hands moving in an obscure pattern near his side.

A flare of red-gold fire surged beneath the elf's hands and a hot spike of pain that dwarfed all previously felt surged though Thorkaf. Something dark inside him reacted, uncoiling, striking back. Eyes bulging, mouth gaping, he lost his grip on the tent pole. Crushing the elf against him convulsively as he fell backwards across the stack of hides. Feet pounding the floor wildly as every muscle in his body spasmed.

"Who are you? What are you!?" the elf was shouting, caught up helplessly in the violent reaction.

He had no voice to answer even if he wanted to. Inside he felt the red-gold fire searing him. Through flesh and vein, bone and sinew. Burning. Purging. Seeking to cleanse him of corruption. Not just the fresh corruption of his wound, but all like it. All the blackness that had been ingrained in him since his first apprenticeship, vile and deep. Black and red fought within him now for dominance; fierce and brutal and relentless. Seizing his body with waves of agony until finally he could not even draw breath as the bitter struggle devoured him whole.

The elf had somehow straddled his chest despite his thrashing and with both hands fisted began to pound on the ribs near his heart. As if he hoped to stop it maybe. But chanting frantic words the while – another spell. Until tongues of red-gold magic fire were spilling from beneath his hands again. Sinking into Thorkaf's flesh. Sinking deep. Joining with the rest of the red within in the struggle against the black.

Thus aided, the red fire roared high and strong again within the orc, growing and spreading, searing and cleansing, until finally it filled even his vision with its agonizing glory. Relentles, consuming. Until the last of the black retreated with what felt like a snarl and a final, vindictive lash of pain. Thorkaf gasped deep and long suddenly and wound his arms around the elf on his chest, squeezing him close to halt the annoying pounding.

"It is over," he gasped, feeling oddly light within his own flesh. As if a weight he had not realized he had carried for ages had finally been shed. He forced his eyes open. The elf's face was right above his own, wing-like brows lowered in anger, mouth drawn down in a frown, pale cheeks flushed.

"Why did you not warn me you had been touched by the Black Dragonflight?" the elf all but spat. "I could have raised defenses!" There was blood smeared across the elf's face. His own or Thorkaf's the orc couldn't tell.

"Because I did not know I was," he answered quietly, basking in the heady sense of ease within himself. Unconcerned, in his relief, by the automatic lie.

Not only was the pain in his side gone as if it had never been, and his mind at peace as it had not been for ages… but his cock was hard, his loins ached with need and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to roll the slim, warm body in his arms beneath his own and fuck it hard. Elf or not. He was taken aback by the strength of that urgent desire, here and now, unheralded as it was.

Until he noticed the pressure of the elf's own stiffened cock against his thigh.

He almost laughed aloud in sheer delight as understanding hit him. As it was, that amusment filled his tone. "Your red master's spell… it seems it has a price."

"They are the Flight of Life itself," the elf answered, the cool voice gone ragged. "They see nothing inappropriate in confirmation of it." Then the elf groaned atop him and let his head sag down until his forehead touched Thorkaf's chest. He was breathing heavily, unevenly, his body trembling slightly as he too struggled against awakened primal urges. "But if this is… not to your taste… we both have our own hands."

"I'd never waste a chance at a willing ass," Thorkaf said, his own voice lowered to a husky rumble. He did not relax his hold on the elf, his blood throbbing eager in his veins.

For a moment there was silence. Stillness. As if the elf debated within himself too. But then the elf flexed his hips closer as he let one leg slide between Thorkaf's, lifting himself with a groan to rub his inner thigh lightly against the orc's taut balls. Taking that motion as his answer, Thorkaf put his hand on the elf's narrow back and stroked downward. Cupped the tightly rounded backside in a wide palm and squeezed carefully.

The elf all but writhed above him in response. His body moving with fluid, eager grace. Long pale hair trailing over his bare skin. Hands moving down Thorkaf's broad ribs in exploration. They were soft hands. Narrow. Unfamiliar in their touch. But not unwelcome. Not now with the power of life itself so high inside of him calling so loudly for the flesh of another to sate it.

"Is my ass to be the only willing one?" the elf murmured, raising his head to rake Thorkaf with a half-lidded gaze full of heat and challenge.

Thorkaf did laugh then, from the sheer, bubbling joy welling inside of him. Alive! He felt alive again. As if the years of caution and fear he had lived before had only been a dim shadow of a life, a pale mockery. He slid a thick finger slowly along the cleft of the elf's ass, tracing through the thin pants he wore. "If you have the will for it," he said grinning wide with wicked promise as his fingertip teased tender flesh. "I'll gladly share mine later."

To his surprise the elf laughed too as he reared up and straddled the orc's hips directly. Narrow thighs bracketed Thorkaf's trapped cock as he settled that sleek bottom right atop his aching balls. The orc groaned and thrust up, carefully, as slim hands reached down to work the laces of his breeches open. The elf's pale eyes glittered, his small tongue darted out to slide along his lips as he reached inside and drew Thorkaf's ready cock free.

"I warn you now, will won't be the problem, Thorkaf Dragoneye… but stopping might be."

~*~

He woke some hours later, mind alert, body relaxed. The wind still moaned and howled outside the tent; the deadly storm still in full sway beyond. He looked down at the pale head that rested on his chest and gave a low grunt of surprise. The elf lay where he had pulled him after their last bout, body cradled deep against his side, one arm thrown across Thorkaf's chest, slim fingers wound in the end of his beard. Dead asleep.

The elf had not been far wrong in his warning. Stopping had been more of a problem than starting. Once unleashed, the lust created by the red dragon fire that had coursed through the both of them had been irresistible. Overwhelming. Nearly insatiable.

They'd fallen upon each other with mutual hunger. Greedy and eager for contact. He'd fucked the elf hard twice, and let the elf take him once in return. But he would gladly have gone for a third time at the elf if he hadn't found traces of blood on the lean thighs, seen the lines of strain around the pale eyes, or noticed the way he buried his small teeth in his lip to hold back winces as Thorkaf handled him.

A touch of reason had returned at the sight of the other's veiled discomfort. And the relentless grip the red fervor had on him had finally eased. Allowing him to recognize the elf's endurance had been reached. That realization had then been followed by a touch of shame. For finding such pleasure and relief in the body of one who should be an enemy. But not quite enough shame, in his relaxed satisfaction, for him to push the elf away. Instead he had made the other as comfortable as possible beside him and urged him to rest, falling into healing slumber almost immediately himself.

His waking must have disturbed the other. Who shifted against him, made to sit up, but fell back against his shoulder with a low groan, unbound hair falling loose and tangled about his face. "My only consolation might be the news that you are as sore as I this morn," the elf said hoarsely, a single eye fixed on him balefully from beneath the mess of hair.

Thorkaf raised his gaze to the arch of the tent above them and grinned wide. "Afraid not."

"Accursedly hardy orc," the elf muttered with only a trace of venom, this time suceeding in pushing himself upright before sweeping the tangled fall of his hair back from his face with both hands. Thorkaf dimly remembered how he himself had pulled the cords from the dusty topknot last night. How he had wound his fist tight in the tumbling silken strands. How he had bent the supple elf forward far over his arm by that grip as he drew his body back even more deeply onto his cock.

Release had felt good. More than good. It had been a long time for him.

Lost in pleased remembrance, Thorkaf reached out and touched the sleek, lean shoulder. Ran his broad hand down the lithe, pale line of the other from shoulder to waist. There was a darkening bruise near his hip, clearly visible on the pale skin. One of several, he saw now, scattered across the elf's hide.

The elf looked at him in open surprise a moment before his expression went guarded and he held himself still. Waiting, watching Thorkaf.

"Well formed," Thorkaf murmured, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the point of the elf's narrow hip as his fingers encircled the curve of a thigh. "If a little scrawny."

He looked into the elf's eyes directly then. "You are only sore then? Not abused?"

The elf did not look away, though his gaze stayed guarded, but after a moment his expression relaxed fractionally, those outrageously long brows lifting enough to twitch with a touch of humor. The hair that composed them was stiff and coarse, he had discovered. Like no other hair on the elf. Standing proud and straight despite any effort to subdue them. The elf lowered his hands from his hair slowly, one catching at Thorkaf's to shift it away. The orc let his hand be moved without resistance.

"Not abused," the elf finally said. "But also... no longer willing."

Thorkaf nodded in understanding. "Fair enough." He rolled away from the elf and off the stacked hides, catching up the crumpled pile of clothing from the floor as he did so. It took but a moment to find which were his own breeches and to toss the elf his own. The elf caught them with an arrested look on his face, as if surprised by his easy acquiescence.

He stepped into his own pants, briskly tugging them over his hips. But it wasn't until he was lacing them up that Thorkaf paused in sudden shock to splay his fingers over his side where the dragon-wound should have been.

He stared down in amazement. For his flesh was whole again.

He prodded the skin carefully but there was no sign on his hide of where the great claw had torn him. Nor of the cautery the elf had done with knife and heat to purge it. It was perhaps a little paler, a trifle sensitive to touch, but the wound itself was gone. Sealed as if it had happened years ago. There was not even a scar.

He'd known last night it was much healed but had paid little attention to it due to the press of other needs. All he'd had care for then – deep in the red magic's grip – was that it no longer hindered his movements.

"That was indeed a powerful healing spell," he said, not bothering to hide the awe in his tone as he bunched up his fist and tapped it firmly against his side. Pleased to provoke not even the slightest twinge of pain with the gesture.

"One that must be only rarely cast," the elf said, clad in pants and shirt again and working on the tangle of his long hair with raking fingers.

Thorkaf glanced at him, lifting his lip around a tusk in an ironic smile. "Doubtless," was all he said. Some of the bubbling well-being inside him fading as he wondered suddenly just how often the elf had used it before. And how many other times the red fire of life had driven him to such excess with another. Or if he had slaked that driving need only by his own hand before.

But the elf did not look up, attention firmly fixed on his hair as he worked to bring it smooth again. He could just ask, he supposed idly, but he doubted the elf would answer him honestly. What business was it of his anyway?

With an inward shrug for the elf's oddly muted demeanor and still content to relish his own lifted spirits, Thorkaf turned to gather up food for a morning meal, picking from the elf's more perishable cheese and bread to feed them both.

"I am no shaman to read the elements; we may have days more to wait out this storm," he said lightly, choosing to settle himself on the floor by the door with his food after laying the elf's portion down beside him. He almost laughed for no reason, so euphoric did he feel.

"As you say," the elf said neutrally, not meeting his gaze. Thorkaf watched him as he ate, puzzling some over the elf's reticence. Examined the pale, down-turned face closely as the elf finally began to eat too.

But before he could fall into brooding himself, his mind wandered into memory. He remembered licking blood from the elf's skin last night. The taste of it raw and empowering on his tongue. Remembered stripping every piece of clothing from the elf's body and his own, impatient for the feel of flesh on flesh alone. He had barely managed to remember to use the healing salve left beside them to slick the other first. To prepare him. But somehow he had.

And now he remembered the way the elf had thrown his head back and shouted out in his own language when first Thorkaf drove into him. So hot and smooth and tight. He'd been pleased to find the elf hardy enough to take him to depth. Had savored the way his balls slapped against the elf's own as he fucked him. He'd taken him first from behind, his slick fist tight around the elf's cock to ensure that the other reached satisfaction as well.

The red fire had restored them both long before they would have recovered on their own. Turning the elf to him before either of them had even truly caught their breath. Gasping and almost desperate, the elf had fumbled the salve onto his own cock in time to accept Thorkaf's leg against his shoulder. Eagerly sliding home to both their satisfaction. He'd buried his hands in that long hair even then, pressing the elf's forehead to his own beneath the white fall of it as the mage worked him to shouting, panting release. And then it had been his turn again...

Ah yes, it had been a good night's sport, he mused to himself pleasantly, even if caused by dragon-magic.

His attention was drawn sharply back to the present when the other man raised the nearly-empty water pouch to his narrow mouth and drank deeply. He grunted a warning just as the elf finished the last of it off.

The elf raised one long brow in silent challenge. Then he capped the empty pouch and braced it flat between his palms. Bowing his head, his lips moved for several moments in what was clearly an incantation. As he spoke the pouch slowly swelled full in his hands again.

"The water I conjure is quite acceptable," the elf said, lips twisted wryly as he tossed the pouch to Thorkaf. Who caught it neatly, well pleased by the slosh and weight of it. "It is just the bread that is rather, well, revolting."

Thorkaf uncapped it, caught the elf's gaze, and took a deep pull from the pouch without hesitation. Water, sweet and cool, flowed down his throat. Tasting not of days stored in a bag, but of a pure spring somewhere, perhaps in a hidden forest grotto or mountain valley. One likely known only to mages, it seemed.

He drank his fill eagerly. Thirst demanded it; the elf's magic would let him sate it.

"A handy spell," he said after wiping his mouth dry on the back of his hand. He tossed the pouch back to the elf, who uncapped it again and drank.

"We mages do have some practical skills too," the elf said wryly when he had finished. Thorkaf snorted in amusement and slowly finished the rest of his meal. Making sure to make each bite last as long as possible. It was a trick some old veterans had shown him for when rations were low. A way to fool the gut into thinking it had more to work on that it did.

As he chewed, he realized just how relaxed he still felt. Nearly content. It had been far too long since he'd felt this way. He could not only credit it to the red dragon's healing spell; the fucking had surely been part of it too. For too long he had held himself well away from the rest of his kind. He'd been alone since gaining his freedom two years ago. For his craft, he'd told himself. To perfect it as revenge against those who had subjugated he and his; a revenge on those who had taken from him everything he cherished.

But now that the red dragon fire had seared him clean of the lingering touch of the Black Flight, he was beginning to wonder what use that was. And if his task truly demanded such solitude.

All it had meant was that it had been far too long since he'd been with another. Too long since he'd been even interested in making the effort. He had never once considered any of the adventurers who came seeking his training as bed sport; indeed he'd done all he could to drive them away as soon as they appeared. While the elf's arrival on what was essentially his doorstep a few weeks ago had been something of an irritation, he had not truly cared. He had cared for little but hide and scale and solitude. And his task.

In the small Horde outpost of Kargath, across the entire width of the Badlands from his camp, there were maybe sixty or so orcs and other Horde allies posted. And while most of those individuals had shown little interest in him on his rare visits, he'd never honestly attempted to seek any of them out, he admitted ruefully now.

A few months ago, on a rare visit for supplies there, he had encountered a solid orc hunter, part of a group of adventurers passing through the post, who had offered to share a warrior's ease with him, if only by hand. He'd refused the man harshly, somewhat annoyed and agitated by the presence of so many strangers, so many other orcs, around him. The group was gone the next morning, into the Searing Gorge to the west. Heading past the Cauldron for the black mountain itself, he'd been told. Likely they never returned. He had never bothered to find out. He hadn't cared.

But he found he cared now. He wondered now if that man -- so eager to grin, so free with his laughter, playing so easily with his massive dire-wolf pet, -- had survived his party's daring foray into the mountain's hellish depths.

Perhaps it was time to visit Kargath again, he mused. To see what he would see differently once there now.

Brushing off both his hands and his thoughts -- unused to such lengthy self-inspection – he noticed that the elf too seemed to have fallen into some kind of meditation after eating. Deeper and more deliberate than his own, though, with eyes closed, hands upturned atop his crossed legs, body upright and still. A small polished red stone lay in one palm, the other one empty. Some practice of his magic perhaps. Having no skill with anything other than craft-magic himself, Thorkaf could not tell.

But this let him examine the elf unregarded. The other had donned his robes again. Looking far more mage-like in the doing, despite the ragged hem where Thorkaf had torn off the piece earlier. And the elf's hair, the orc noted with some amusement, had been rendered smooth and orderly again. Its ivory shade only faintly tinted pink by the red dust, it was once again tied back in the high topknot the elf preferred. Seeing him like this, so distant and poised and reserved, made it difficult to remember the writhing, hungry thing he had been beneath him last night.

An interesting connundrum. But not one he would have to consider for more than a few more days, at most, he thought, a part of him relieved by that fact. As welcome as his new mental ease was, the firm habit of years was hard to abandon. He longed for solitude.

Respecting the other's focus, he settled himself by the armor rack to mend his spaulders, ceding the stack of hides to the other for now. Making do with just his usual small lantern for light this time as he set to work.

When he was done repairing the damage his prey had done there, he checked over the rest of his gear thoroughly. Testing straps. Adjusting buckles. Re-wrapping the bindings on the haft of his axe completely when he discovered where dragon-bile had eaten holes in part of the leather grip.

Though he applied his usual focus and care to his tasks, he found his gaze sometimes wandered to the elf who stayed silent and still in the same meditative pose as the day wore on.

~*~

Near what was likely midday, a small lull in the storm prompted him to step outside to relieve himself behind a close cluster of rocks. When he returned, the elf was standing in the middle of the tent, staff in hand, eyes wary. He took note, though, of the way the elf relaxed as soon as he poked his head within.

"The wind is less just now," he said, removing the cloth wrap from his face as he stepped all the way inside. He held the tent flaps closed against the swirling dust behind him, but did not seal them yet. "Good time to piss."

"Ah, a wise plan," the elf said, brushing past him after donning the face-wrap Thorkaf offered him. He drew the flaps apart, allowing the elf to slip through beneath his arm, then waited there, holding them shut until a rap on his knuckles let him know the other had returned.

He let the elf duck through under his arm, then sealed the flaps tightly closed again against the swirling wind. Turned when that task was done only to find the elf standing far too close to him, his gaze narrow and thoughtful. Thorkaf held himself still as the elf reached toward him and pushed the coarse hair behind his ear back to expose the skin beneath.

"Ah," the elf said as searching fingertips brushed over his neck. Paused. The orc fought down the sudden sharp impulse to smack the intrusive hand away. The ease of the day vanished in an instant, shattered by cold reality. The pale blue gaze that shifted to look at what those fingers had found grew quickly shuttered. Wary.

"This mark is faded, nearly gone. How can that be...?" the elf asked, his long brows drawing down in a sudden frown.

Thorkaf felt a hot, warning pulse where the elf's fingers touched him. Like fire. Or magic. He caught the elf's wrist then. Was careful not to crush the slender bones in his tense grip as he lifted the other's hand deliberately away from his skin.

But he kept hold of the slim wrist as he leaned closer to the other, noting by the sudden wary flare of the eyes, the startled dancing of the brows, the stiffening shoulders that his own expression must have become dire.

This near the other man, he smelled the mingled scents of sweat and dust and sex that surrounded him, and beneath it all, the familiar reek of dragon-magic. His blood quickened in his veins. Old memories rose. Swift, dark and terrible. Threatening to flood him and break down his control. He fought them back, almost shaking with the effort.

For there had been the healing of his wound. And there had been the willingly shared flesh before. And those few hours where the weight of his past, and the burden his soul carried, had seemed the lighter. For those things he was grateful; he would try not to break the other's arm.

"Some things are best left undisturbed," he said, voice flat and forbidding, holding the elf's gaze for a long moment. Then he released the elf's wrist and stepped around him.

With no chore left to distract him, no fine-work he was any longer in the mood to start, he laid himself out flat on the stack of hides. Sleep would be the best way to wait out the storm. And the best way to ignore the elf – and the oddly sharp pricking of his conscience – as well.

He folded his hands over his chest. Closed his eyes. And willed sleep to come to him soon.

~*~

Thorkaf woke suddenly and completely, eyes opening wide on utter darkness.

He had finally fallen into a restless doze only after hours of determined pretense. All to avoid the elf's suspicious gaze, his unanswerable questions. The wail of the wind beyond the tent walls was still fierce and relentless, thick dust clouds blinding the moon's eye and veiling the stars above so no light made it through to the land below. He sensed the unmoving presence of the elf beside him, lying on the hides, so it was not something done by his unaccustomed guest.

He listened closer to the night and the storm then, still uncertain what had woken him.

Then the sound came again. Harsh. Angry. Primal.

A dragon's roar. Heard despite the wail of the wind. Close then. He shuddered where he lay, hands fisting futilely at his sides.

"Where?" the elf said, his voice low, but just loud enough to be heard over the storm.

"The ridge above," Thorkaf replied gruffly, senses straining, body tense. If it discovered them, they would be nearly helpless, hindered as they were by both the tent and the sandstorm. The elf moved. Faced him now. He could feel the other's breath wash against his bare shoulder.

"I have not seen one this far outside the Ravine since I came here," the elf said, puzzled and wary. Thorkaf was keenly aware of the closeness of the other as a living presence beside him in the dark. Sensed, but not seen.

"No," Thorkaf said as his blood throbbed in his throat, his battle-instincts surging. "They rarely come out this far."

Only to hunt. But a storm like this drove prey into cover. It made no sense. Unless it had sensed…

The elf spoke first, his voice taut. "It was my master's spell that attracted it."

The dragon on the ridge above roared again. The sound was frustrated. Angry. Defiant. A younger drake, he thought, one that barely understood why it was searching for what it had sensed; the magical trace of its enemy.

"It seems so," Thorkaf said. He rolled over then, in the darkness, and covered the elf's body with his own.

The elf tensed in surprise. "What are you…?" Slim muscles bunched as his body tried to twist away, but failed against Thorkaf's far greater bulk. Gasping for breath against his weight, the elf lifted his hands to Thorkaf's shoulders to try to push him off. It didn't work.

Thorkaf simply caught his wrists, leaned most of his weight on his elbow and pinned the elf's hands above their heads despite his struggles. After securing them in one hand, he used the other to brace himself, to keep from completely crushing all air from the other. A skinny magic-using elf-mage stood no chance against his honed orcish strength. Or his sheer size. Which truth might just save them both.

"Lie still," he ordered, listening intently for anything beyond the unending lash of the wind outside again. "It's searching for the aura of your magic; I have none."

To his relief, the elf seemed to catch on and stilled beneath him with only a last hiss of displeasure. The heart beneath his began pounding faster with fear or anger – or both. Thorkaf shifted further over him, trying to cover the elf as completely as possible. To make himself and his own body's lack of magic the most effective barrier against the dragon's senses that he could.

What he was doing wouldn't have much chance of working against a grown dragon, he knew. But against an untrained, orphan drake of the Ravine it might.

They lay in tense silence like that for what seemed like hours but was likely only minutes. Both of them listening intently now for the next roar. Or for that final rush of wings, the fatal screech of claws against the scaled tent as the dragon found them. Tore their shelter away and revealed them. His bare back tingled. So exposed. He was without even his armor to provide some minor sense of protection. He began to sweat as the minutes passed. Gritted his teeth and bared his fangs in a silent snarl against the darkness and the dragon. He could feel the elf's pulse racing like his; fast and hot with both hope and fear.

It was a potent mix. And with the elf's already known body crushed beneath his own, the elf's hands pinned by his, the other's breath washing quick and urgent against his face, he felt himself begin to harden. The heat in his blood expanding despite the danger. Or because of it. He went from battle-readiness to raw lust in a flash. Focusing on what he could feel rather than what he could not.

The elf made a low sound in the darkness. Of surprise or dismay; he could not tell.

"And what of it?" he said recklessly as he shifted his hips against the other and felt the elf harden too. He laughed then, low and slow and dangerous. The other man groaned, his breath hitching and Thorkaf bent his head and pressed his mouth against the pulse racing high on the elf's throat. Who had shed his robes to sleep in the close warmth of the tent and was clad only in his thin, billowing shirt and rune-marked pants. So there was no bunched robe to impede his movements as he worked one thigh between the elf's legs, spreading them open. Thorkaf settled himself there with a grunt of satisfaction, setting cock against cock.

"It's death or life," he said, a tusk brushing under the elf's ear. Awaiting a response. Listening to their paired breaths. The rush of blood in his veins. Listening to the storm. And for the dragon's coming.

"Always life," the elf gasped out finally and Thorkaf rolled his hips against him in approval, grinding them together through their clothes. He kept the elf's hands in his. Relished the desperate flex of arm and wrist it caused at each thrust. Savored the pulse of hard flesh against his as he moved. Listened to the gasps and murmurs of the elf as he rocked them together like that for several heady, heedless moments.

Then they both froze as the dragon outside roared again. And it might just have been the pounding of hot blood in his own ears drowning it out but Thorkaf thought the sound had grown fainter.

But, "It's leaving," the elf said, his voice thrumming beneath Thorkaf's mouth.

"Or circling," he allowed against the elf's throat. He could smell traces of himself on the other's skin from before; it dazzled him. So long it had been, his drought, only to have it broken so utterly. So satisfyingly. Even if it had been a dragon's magic that had first ended it… a dragon's presence now…

He rolled his hips again, slowly, enjoying the hot pressure of the elf's cock against his own despite the barrier of their pants. Careful to keep himself spread over the elf as again and again he stroked them together. Slow. Even. His motion steady. Hips alone moving. Upper body still. Listening to the harshening of the other's breaths beneath him as he worked. The tight gasps. Smelling the other's sweat. Feeling the tension of captive hands curling into fists. Until finally he felt the small shifts the other began to make with his lower body to adjust the path of his strokes, bringing even more pressure to bear on them both.

The dragon roared once more – definitely further away – but he didn't pause this time. Sped up the motion of his hips instead. Faster, deeper, longer were his strokes. The elf panting heavily beneath him, hot breath in his ear, body arching against his blatantly now.

"No… clothes…" the elf managed to say, voice raw. Thorkaf paused. That was truth. The elf had nothing else to wear. It was also a clear surrender to what was happening. He grinned wide against the elf's pounding pulse and released the other's hands. They rose to his shoulders, pushing him up as he adjusted his angle. He let himself lean a little to one side now, but not moving from above the elf. Still aware of the need to shield his aura from the searching dragon.

He lifted off the other enough to reach down between and tear at the buttons of the other's pants. Opened them to find the slick, hot length within and engulfed it in his fist.

"Better?" he asked as he pumped his fist once. The elf writhed against him without answering, hands skidding across Thorkaf's bare chest, down to his waist. He felt those slim fingers find the laces of his own pants. Murmured an approval as the elf quickly worked him free. Gripped him. He groaned into the elf's skin at the touch. Felt the slender fingers clench tighter around him, firm and sure.

Their hands and wrists bumped against each other in the narrow space that was all he would allow between them. Interfered with his strokes. He solved the issue by pushing the elf's hand aside and gathering up his own cock too, squeezing it tight against the elf's in his fist.

The elf cried out, low and guttural, a hand gripping Thorakaf's wrist, moving along as he pumped them both together, slick and hot, for several gratifying moments. He bared his fangs against the elf's neck. His own lungs working like a bellows as he stroked them both. Slippery-hot and tight. Pulsing flesh and need. His balls ached with the need to spew, but he'd be damned if he'd break before the elf, he thought through the consuming haze of motion and heat. Flesh to flesh. Breath to breath.

He rubbed his thumb hard over the slick-hot dome of the elf's cockhead twice and the elf arched beneath him, keening as he began to jerk and quiver helplessly. He felt the hot spray against his belly and grinned in triumph. He stroked them both a few more times even as the elf completed, quickly bringing himself to the edge too. And with a last jerk of his wrist, he added his own seed to the mess, balls tight, muscles quivering, mind blanking with the pleasure of his release.

While his mind returned from bliss, he held himself braced above the elf, gasping for breath along with the other. Absorbed the aftershocks for a few moments more, the heat of anticipation, the drive of need easing slowly from his blood. Leaving him sharply conscious of the fact, once more, that the elf was nominally his enemy. He found that his hand was still tight around their softened cocks; he let it relax slowly. Flattening his slick hand over the both of them, pressing them to his own bare skin.

But it felt good. Very good. The heat of the other against him, enemy or not. Their mingled scent concentrated by the confines of the tent. The sated relaxation of his own body. He kept himself from relaxing down and crushing the other only by main will.

The elf muttered something sharp in his own language, his hands falling abruptly away from Thorkaf's back, where they had been gripping him tight, to lie on the hides beneath them. His head turned away; one long brow brushed across Thorkaf's face.

"What was that?" Thorkaf asked, lifting his head in the utter darkness, away from that feathery touch. There was silence from the other for a long moment. A growing tension in the body beneath his. He made no move away from the elf, however. Despite the other's obvious wish.

"Is it gone… has it left?" the elf finally said, his tone cool. He was well aware that those were likely not the words the elf had said in his own tongue.

"We can only guess," he said, facing the elf even in the darkness. Their mixed come was cooling between them. Growing sticky and thick. A messy, inescapable reminder.

"Must we stay like this?" The elf sounded openly annoyed now.

"For a while longer, to be sure it's gone," he answered. The elf let out a huff of breath and shifted uneasily beneath him. He laughed softly, perversely amused by the elf's annoyance. The elf's softened cock slipped out of his grasp at the motion. He let it go, easing his hand from between them. Their bare bellies met. Stuck. The elf's flinching away beneath his for a moment. Maybe in disgust over the mess. Or perhaps just from the clamminess of it. He smiled in the darkness, amused by that too, feeling too good, too sated to be disturbed much by the elf's irritations.

There had been no magic involved this time, he thought. Only natural need and heat. And clearly a shared need; even if the elf had second thoughts about it now.

But as they waited, listening, the silence grew heavy between them again. Like the night beyond. Smothering. Close. He listened to the wind. And the elf's deliberately even breathing. It was almost in sync with his own. But not quite.

Long minutes passed. Endless minutes. Still they heard nothing more of the dragon.

Either it was gone or it wasn't. They could not stay thus all night long, he decided at last. He moved slowly, raising himself to elbows and knees. Their sticky skin parted reluctantly, almost painfully. Drying come clung to short hair and bare skin alike nearly like glue. He looked down to where he knew the elf's face had to be. Thought he could catch the faintest of gleams from the elf's magic-imbued eyes even in the utter darkness.

"There is enough water for washing," he offered gruffly. "By your conjuring."

"So there is," the elf agreed, his tone stiff.

Thorkaf still made no move to shift the rest of the way away. Holding himself over the other. Straining uselessly to see the other through the darkness.

He realized, suddenly, that some part of him did not want to relinquish the moment. Not the elf's body beneath his. The reluctant acquiescence. The quiet annoyance. The circumstance that forced them there. Any of it. And he wondered how such a profound change had taken him over so quickly. Had the red fire done more than cleanse him of the black taint? The idea struck panic deep within; he wanted done with dragons.

With a snarl, he rolled away to the edge of the tent and oriented himself by that touch. Focused himself on action instead of thought. Moved along the tent wall to the pile of his supplies in the darkness. Fumbled through them by touch until he found one water pouch and some cloth rags. Scrubbed the mess from his own hand and belly and did up his loosened pants first before turning back to the stack of hides.

But the scent of spent sex was still heavy in the close, warm air. He took a deep breath, drawing it in. Death or life. He'd offered the choice himself. Heard the answer. Still he did not know if it was true. If it could ever be true for him given the dragon's curse he bore.

"Do you hear the dragon again?" the elf asked, his tone cautious.

Part of Thorkaf's mind flinched for the elf's wording. He frowned and moved, with one searching hand sweeping low through the darkness he swiftly found the other man's covered knee. The elf had moved and sat now on the edge of the hides to wait. At the contact, he dropped the water pouch and rags into the elf's lap. Heard the dismayed gasp, the sharp rustle of movement as the elf grabbed after the tumbling items in the darkness.

"Clean yourself," he said to the air, his own breathing gone ragged as he struggled to master a sudden mad impulse to lay the elf down, strip him bare and lick his skin clean. To lose himself utterly in pure sensation with that slim body again.

The depth of the impulse sent a lash of guilty pain through him. Where was his self-control? How could he lose sight of the task of years so quickly? Did he honestly think one spell, one night of ease could release him from it so easily? Absolve him? He was a fool.

A simple fuck between strangers – between enemies, he corrected himself angrily – could not change his fate. He had no business with this elf now that he knew who he served. None that would not end in his doom. The very thought made him draw away from the other to the door of the tent. As far away as he could get.

He sat on the floor, his back to his armor stand. He would keep watch. Stay wary for the dragon's possible return and be careful to keep his distance from the other for the rest of the night.

~*~

"It was a lie when you said you did not know you had been touched by the Black Flight," the elf said to him some time late the next day, shattering the wary silence utterly. The wind had not answered his prayers at all and showed no sign of easing. So much for his people's supposed deep connection with the elements, Thorkaf thought bitterly. Or at least his connection to them anyway.

He grunted a warning, but the elf went on anyway. "What honor can there be in that for you, orc?"

"There is none." He turned to face the other slowly from his place by the door again. His body tense, his expression forbidding. After hours of sullen silence, now this.

"Yet your people hold honor highly, do they not?"

He narrowed his gaze on the other, carefully putting down the make-work he had been doing. "Are you trying scholar's tricks on me, mage? If your words prove that I must be without honor, what is there then to keep me from throwing you out into the storm to die?"

The blue gaze met his steadily, the elf's chin lifted slightly. "Because you have not, Thorkaf Dragoneye. I find that simple fact nearly as interesting as the secrets you hold so close – such as the one that gave you knowledge of my master's name."

Thorkaf examined the elf, studying that smooth, pale face for uncertainty or hesitation. There was none. He took a steadying breath, working to keep the rising anger, the driving need to defend himself from a growing sense of threat at bay.

"Red dragons," he began slowly. Deliberately. Locking the elf's gaze with his own. "Have many enemies in these southern lands – some even of their own flight."

He saw the angry flinch, the nearly instinctive urge to cast a spell, come over the other as comprehension sank in. But the elf contained himself to only the merest twitch of his fingers toward his staff and a slight tightening of his mouth.

"No. That mark is not of the Red Flight," the elf said grimly, focused and relentless. "Or my master's spell would not have fought it so hard. What bound you was of the Black. So, how is it that you can hunt them, Master Leatherworker?"

Thorkaf shook his head once, fighting to keep his hands from fisting at his sides and failing, gaze never shifting from the elf's. Memory and magic swirled furiously in his mind. "When your master first gave you that spell... did he warn you of the after-effects?"

The elf paled at that. Glanced away. Thorkaf felt a hot rush. Like triumph. Only fouler, more bitter.

"He did not, did he? Why warn a tool against its best use?" He bared his fangs. Had to struggle not to growl. "That is all we are to them, Dragonsworn. Tools. Insects. Worthy of only moments of their thought, their notice, because that is all the mortal races are to them. Moments."

The elf looked shaken for an instant more, gaze turned inward. "Lord Krasus is different... he just didn't realize how their healing power affects mortals…" Then he straightened, his gaze narrowing, lifting to Thorkaf's again. "The Red Flight is not our enemy. They want to protect all the mortal races. Because to save us is to aid Life, fulfilling the Titan's sacred trust."

"The Titans?" Thorkaf snorted. "You speak of distant, uncaring gods to soothe your slavery, elf. Marked or unmarked, we mortals are only playthings to them."

The elf leaned toward him then, eyes gleaming, and shook his head fiercely. "No, I am not slave to Lord Krasus, but willing servant to his goals because they are goals that will aid my people too. Yet I know the Black are not so fond of mortals as the Red. Your bitterness is no doubt rightfully earned, Thorkaf Dragoneye. But how did you break free?"

"You believe the Red are fond of mortals?" He laughed grimly, heart pounding in his chest. Further words choked in his throat. Regret and terror, despair and pain rising inside him like a flood. Old. Raw. Not his own – though the spirits knew he was no innocent -- and still horrible beyond belief. As penance for what one clan of orcs had done, the knowledge of their full atrocities had been thrust upon him alone. The guilt of it pulsed within his soul, thick and vile, nearly as if he had done all those terrible things himself. Which was impossible. Twenty-three years ago he had been barely more than a cub and still blissfully free of any knowledge of dragon-kind.

But that small truth hadn't mattered to the one who had cursed him; a Red dragon.

The elf was staring at him intently all during his brief inward struggle, those long brows drawn down in confusion. "Who are you?"

And suddenly he wanted to explain. To pour out his long, bitter tale and prove to the elf how foolish he was to so blindly trust the dragon who was his master. Black or Red they were no friend to mortals. Yet still the humiliation, dishonor and terror he had suffered beneath his own master's claws paled before his current curse. But the angry words died in his throat before they could be said, bound tightly to him by those old spells.

"I am an orc always in the wrong place at the wrong time," was all he managed, throat raw. And then he turned his back on the elf.

Slience reigned in the tent for a long while as he struggled to tamp down the pain, the anger set free within him again. Fists shaking, shoulders hunched he worked to contain it again. The deliberate shell of calm and disinterest he had built around himself so painstakingly over the last few years had been too easily shattered. He had been right to hold himself away from others, he thought as he struggled desperately to rebuild it again. To at least partially wall away the curse that plagued him again.

He needed that shell.

So focused was he on this task that the soft words from behind him went nearly unheard.

"No, I don't think you are, Thorkaf Dragoneye."

~*~

The storm lasted one more day. A day that passed slowly in uncomfortable, wary silence. Though he longed for solitude, -- craved it like a drug –, the last of his honor would not let him cast the elf out. But inwardly he cursed the odd impulse again and again that had made him grant the elf guest-right.

The wind finally began to die sometime during the third night. They both stirred from dull half-slumber at the lessening of the seemingly endless lashing of sand against the tent, the elf rising from the far corner of the hides where he'd staked a small space away from Thorkaf's dour frowns and forbidding silence.

"Is the storm…?" the elf said, head cocked. They were the first words either had said to the other in more than a day. Thorkaf grunted and moved to the tent flaps, un-hooking them and stepping outside.

The wind was dropping to nothing even as he emerged, the half-moon shining clear and pale above the fading remnants of the dust clouds that only faintly marred the air to the west.

The elf soon followed behind him, staff in hand, cloak around his shoulders, a single skin of water in his other hand. He paused a moment beside Thorkaf. Caught his gaze by the light of the moon for a moment and held it, his pale eyes gleaming. Then gave him a short, stiff bow before he strode off over the sand-strewn rise that lead down to the old dragon skeleton and his own camp.

Thorkaf watched him go in grim silence.

Then he bent down and began to dig the drifted sand out of his fire-pit and set his camp to rights again from the damage the storm had wrought.

~*~

It had been over a week since the storm's end and he had kept himself busy curing and tanning the huge bundle of black dragonhide he'd dragged back just before it struck.

Focused on his craft, he stayed close to his camp, venturing out only to get water from the small spring to the south as he needed. Never going north, toward the bones where he presumed the elf still camped. He was determined to forget the other man and his own strange, still unexplained impulse toward mercy that had led him to help him.

Yet every morning when he reached for his eating knife – only to find it gone – he remembered the elf anyway. The mage had indeed melted it to tend his wound. Somehow he found that simple loss far more of an annoyance than he'd expected. A constant reminder of his own failing.

One morning he set out for the small goblin mining camp just inside the Valley of Fangs to the west. On a supply run. To get more salt for the curing. And a new eating knife. When his path led him down near the bones on his way to the Gulch, he scanned the area indifferently.

There was sign that the elf had renewed his camp beneath the ancient dragon skull, but of the elf himself he saw nothing. He wondered, for a brief moment as he passed, if ogres might have captured the mage.

The Dustbelcher clan had been more active than usual, ever since they destroyed the Ironforge dwarves' dig to the north, near the ruins of Uldaman. Many adventurers had come to Uldaman afterward, seeking fame and treasure, only to die in its depths in obscurity. The garrison of dark iron dwarves in Angor Fortress had been quick to take advantage, pushing the ogres out and re-claiming the site for themselves again. The ogres had retaliated until the troggs had appeared, spilling from the mountain's depths to add their own claim to the ruins.

The frequent battles among all three groups had made it a dangerous summer in the Badlands.

But even if the ogres had caught the mage, it was foolish to let such an idea dig at him. The ogres had no good reason to venture this close to Lethlor Ravine either; they rightly feared the black dragons who roosted there. He shook his head at his thoughts and strode on. It was no duty of his to rescue the fool if he had wandered into the ogres' range on his own. The elf was Dragonsworn and Alliance. The fate of neither was his concern.

Though neither had it been his concern to save the elf from the storm before. He forced that self-mocking thought away grimly and focused on his hard-won inner calm again instead.

He kept up a steady walking pace. Working his way across the miles of the flat basin as the relative cool of early morning faded into the pitiless heat of day, hat low on his head, a wary eye out now for circling buzzards, hunting wolf-packs, and ogre patrols. With all the chaos in the land, the once-plentiful herds of desert deer and wild horses had fled to the softer lands in the north, leaving hungry predators behind now willing to take greater risks.

Sometime near noon he spotted a trail of dust to the north. It was heading roughly in his direction and so he paused in the slim shade of a gnarled tree to watch it. Moving too fast to be ogres, it had to be mounted travelers, he decided. And coming from the north, from Alliance-controlled lands, they were unlikely to be friendly. As soon as he could, he found a cluster of rocks with a defensible gap and settled himself within as the dust trail neared.

There were three of them. A blue-skinned night elf man on a pale tiger. A red-bearded dwarf on a ram with a gun ready across his lap and a great black bear lumbering beside his mount. While the last was a human woman on a dun horse, the pale gleam of her robes proclaiming her to be a priest or a mage, perhaps.

For several tense minutes as they neared he thought he'd escaped their notice. But the dwarf lifted his head suddenly and looked toward the rocks where he waited. The dwarf reined his ram to a sharp halt as he gave a cry of warning. The human kept riding for a few moments more before slowing, but the night elf stopped immediately and slid off his cat. The cat crouched down and snarled, drawing Thorkaf's attention just long enough for him to lose track of the night elf as the cat bounded off to his left. The dwarf slid off his ram too and called his bear to his side, cocking his gun as he waited.

He sensed more than saw the night elf's swift, stealthy approach from his right, spun his axe to block the sword swinging toward his neck and shouted a full battle-cry, startling his opponent for a brief instant. Long enough to twist the blade out of the elf's hand with his axe and send it spinning off into the dust. There was a loud boom. Rock exploded near his face before he could follow up on the brief advantage, showering him with sharp shards. He cursed and ducked further into the gap in the rocks, trying to stay out of the dwarf's sights and keep track of the night elf too. He'd been wearing leather. Likely a rogue. He would be lucky to survive now, Thorkaf thought grimly, not with their three to his one.

The riding cat snarled from behind him somewhere, making him glance up to be certain the rogue wasn't dropping in behind him. Then the hunter's bear was in his face, driving him back, swiping at his armored legs. His armor held, more than proof against an ordinary beast's claws, but the force of the blow staggered him for a moment.

He gathered himself, fury building. Hacked at the bear, striking it across its front leg. Blood flew. It roared in rage and rose up to bash him full-body back into the rocks. His head bounced hard off the rock. He had no helm on, so his ears rang and his nose bled from the force of it.

He heard a shout then, above the bear's roaring, and suddenly the raging beast attempting to bite his forearm off became a fluffy, bewildered sheep. Mage-magic. A temporary transformation. He lifted his axe high above his head hoping to kill it with one blow while he could, wondering why the dwarf hunter hadn't rounded the corner and shot him yet.

"Stay your axe, Thorkaf Dragoneye!"

He stopped suddenly, claws of ice clamped about his feet, a deep chill sweeping over his limbs. The sheep bleated and sprang out of range, startled. He jerked one boot from the ice's hold even as a familiar pale-haired form drew into view.

"So you side with them, Garek?" He bared his tusks and snarled at the elf, battle-rage high. The rest of the ice at his feet shattered into swiftly-melting shards.

The elf's eyes were bright with anger. His hands glowed with a bluish light. More ice-magic, he didn't doubt. "I do not. I am simply stopping this pointless battle. Lower your axe, Thorkaf Dragoneye."

He heard angry words shouted in a tongue he didn't know. The elf answered in the same tongue, his voice sharp and commanding, his face stern, his gaze never leaving Thorkaf. The sheep wandered aimlessly beyond, bleating piteously.

"You will leave without further harm, Master Dragoneye, but I suggest you travel to Kargath for the night."

"I take no orders from you, Dragonsworn!" he shouted, suddenly too angry for caution, a sense of betrayal he shouldn't feel stinging him.

In a flare of white light the elf was in front of him, within reach. He glared into alarmed blue eyes even as he caught a glimpse of the blue-skinned night elf rogue appearing behind the mage's shoulder, a dagger at the ready. He grabbed blindly, yanking the mage toward him, into the scant safety of the rocks and parried the descending blade, slamming the night elf's hand against rock even as he put himself and his axe between the high elf and his kin.

"I said stop!" Garek shouted, pointed and the startled night elf turned into a sheep. Denied his closest foe as the sheep fled, Thorkaf backed up, forcing Garek into the gap behind him, pinning the other behind him against rock with his body.

"What honor have they?" He snarled furiously over his shoulder. "Your own people attack you!"

Garek shoved at his back. "Stubborn fool. I blinked in to stop him killing you; now move before Ironhaft shoots you dead."

"What did you say?" He turned to look over his shoulder then at the elf who was still glaring back at him. The approaching roar of the bear caught his attention for a moment, and when he looked back the elf mage had teleported away again, past him and out into the open.

The dwarf appeared at a run, coming around the rocks, gun leveled on Thorkaf, the bear at his side roaring. The sheep who was the night elf danced away nervously. Garek stepped between the dwarf and the orc, his back to Thorkaf, his arms spread, speaking quickly and sternly in the dwarven tongue now. Thorkaf caught a word or two, mostly some commands to obey, but understood no more than that. It was different dialect from the Dark Iron tongue he knew.

To Thorkaf's astonishment, as Garek spoke, the dwarf glowered, then lowered his gun and put his hand on his bear's head, calming it. The human woman appeared from somewhere out of his view, leading her horse and the dwarf's ram. A long, ornate staff remained slung on her back and her face was shaded by a deep hood. The words she spoke sounded annoyed until the dwarf jerked his head toward the sheep and laughed, then she gave a short laugh too.

Garek looked at the sheep and it was suddenly the night elf again. Who spat something furiously at him in their language, gesturing toward Thorkaf with obvious anger.

Whatever Garek said then made the night elf straighten up in shock. Then, after a quick, startled glance toward Thorkaf, he bowed with both hands clasped before him to the high elf, a carefully blank look on his face.

Garek turned to Thorkaf again, his gaze grim. "Go to Kargath. Stay there a few days until they leave this area again. By this act I pay my debt in full for your aid and your hospitality during the storm, Thorkaf Dragoneye."

Behind him the night elf had called his cat and swung up with careless ease into the saddle. The dwarf and human had mounted again too. The night elf offered a bloodied hand – the one Thorkaf had smashed against the rocks – to the high elf mage, who took it without hesitation and swung up behind him onto the cat's back. The group of them turned and rode back toward his camp. Toward Lethlor Ravine.

He glared after them. No. Kargath was not his only option. He shook his head, trying uselessly to ease the lingering ringing in his ears. The goblin camp was closer. While they would not protect him if the three Alliance should come upon him there, their presence would hopefully discourage blatantly blood-thirsty reactions. It was well known that goblins disliked combat in their places of business.

He slung his axe on his back again, drawing his hat down low over his eyes to shade them from the burn of the midday sun, and continued his walk across the bare plains, still seething inside.

~*~

He reached the small goblin camp in the Valley of Fangs as the sun was sinking below the far mountains. As always, he and Martek the Exiled were careful to not speak to each other. The other orc busied himself on the far side of the camp with some odd metal devices as Thorkaf approached the goblin smith. Jazzrik took the melted haft of his eating knife when offered with a snort.

"Poking dragons with this little toy were you?" The goblin smith flexed the blackened blade end between his gauntlet-covered hands, wincing when it snapped off almost at once, the metal rendered brittle by the magic that had heated it. "Hey, I know you orcs think you're tough and all, but that's just insane."

Thorkaf shrugged, ignoring the comments as the goblin tossed the rest of the metal bits into his melting pot. "I need another, obviously. A new whetstone too. And some salt."

"Well, I've got what you need… if you've got what I need. Gold, that is." Then they got down to the business of trade.

As he was stowing his new purchases in his pack, Rigglefuzz, the other goblin, wandered over from the small cluster of tents at the back of the camp, upwind from the forges. He was brushing the remains of his dinner off the stained front of his once-elegant red silk suit. "Yo. You're looking a little beat up there, Dragoneye. Run into Boss Tho'grun's boys or something?"

He fingered the small cuts the stone ships the dwarf's shot had scattered over him had made in his cheek. "Not ogres; Alliance."

"Oh?" Both the goblins perked up, their eyes gleaming with avarice. "A big force? An army maybe? In need of supplies?" Rigglefuzz added, already rubbing his hands together.

"Just three riders." He nearly laughed out loud as their expressions fell in unison. "They went off with that elf mage. Garek. Toward the Ravine."

"Oh." The goblins traded shrugs and dejected sighs. "That's it for their cash then."

Thorkaf frowned, suddenly alert. "Why do you say that?"

"That Garek guy," Jazzrik said as if it was obvious. "Well, he's been looking for someone to find some lost magic rock that can break some Dark Iron dwarf seals on some magic pillars over in the Ravine there or something."

Thorkaf stiffened in shock. "He seeks the Sign of the Earth?" he demanded, voice gone hoarse.

"Yeah, think that's the one he said," Jazzrik said, nodding as he worked his forge-bellows. Sparks flew. Rigglefuzz spoke again, brows drawing down as he stepped away from the sparks cast off by the smith's work. "Come to think of it, one of those Warlords over in Kargath is looking for some special rock out here too. Wonder if it's the same one… might be worth something then."

"It's worth only your life," Thorkaf said grimly, slinging his pack onto his back and jamming his hat on his head again. Normally, he'd pay the fee and stay the night in the goblin's camp. But not now. Not after hearing those words.

Anger filled the orc as he loped across the plains back toward his camp through the fall of dusk. The elf had sworn to him that his mission here was of no danger to him and his. That meant that the elf's dragon master had lied to him… or that even the Red Consort did not fully understand the terror that could be unleashed by that stone.

~*~

He reached his camp in the darkest hours of the night. It was undisturbed. Or so it seemed at first, from the rise. But the puddle of rank cat urine that filled his fire-pit soon disabused him of that idea once he slid down the small slope. The night elf, at least, had made his displeasure over being forced to not kill an orc plainly known.

Fouled dirt could be dug up. The smell buried. He shrugged and moved past it without another thought. The tent and his goods inside appeared unharmed, which was far more important anyway. He was already wearing his dragon-scale armor, his two-handed axe slung over his back. He tossed his pack and travel-hat inside, grabbed a fresh, full water skin and his helm and left everything else behind.

He jogged over the hill, past the mage's smaller – and equally empty – camp beneath the shadowy, towering bones, and up into the narrow washes and twisting canyons of Lethlor Ravine again.

It was clear to him now that the mage's mission here had been to find the Sign of the Earth itself. In the turmoil of the summer's battles, the Dark Iron dwarves must have lost control of the stone to the ogres. Rumor had been slow this year. The few Horde adventurers who had come seeking his skills had said nothing, but perhaps an Alliance adventurer had found some evidence of it from those dwarves and brought word back to the north, where Krasus had heard and send his Dragonsworn here to investigate.

The growing moon was starting to hide her face behind the tops of the ridge when he reached the first pillar. It had used to glow with a faint golden light that was visible even in mid-day, but now the gray obelisk was dark and the stone cold and dead beneath his hand. The magic it had once channeled was now gone. He swore and started for the second pillar as quickly as he dared, knowing that black whelps, with their painful flaming breath and sharp talons, roosted in the area and would swarm him if he disturbed them.

The second stone was closer, only two small ridges away. But the third stone of the seal was on the far side of the inner ravine, in a place where the much larger adolescent drakes lived. Like the one he had hunted before the storm.

In the early stages of their lives, dragons who had no elders to guide them were often little more than mindless feeding machines. Killing and devouring almost anything they could catch as they grew swiftly toward the endless days of their maturity and full intelligence. They most often hunted alone too, greedy for flesh and blood. That fact had allowed him to isolate and trap his prey with relative ease. But when they managed to tolerate each other long enough to hunt in groups, their cunning rose to dangerous levels. They would ambush even the fortified ogre camps then.

If the young drakes roosting here were suddenly to receive guidance and direction from more mature dragons they would become nearly unstoppable; sweeping across the Badlands to destroy Kargath, or even up into the weakened defenses of the dwarven lands of Loch Modan to the north.

The kind of guidance two dragons with centuries of cruelty and malice and destruction behind them could bring. There was a reason the whelps and young drakes of the Black Dragonflight had been attracted to roost in this ravine; bound within the Sealing Stone in the center of the main valley were two of Deathwing's own lieutenants, Hematus and Blacklash. The Dark Iron dwarves of Angor Fortress had managed the feat several years ago, though at great cost to their manpower and strength.

But if the second seal was already broken, he was far too late to stop the Alliance group from reaching the third. He could only hope he reached the central sealing stone itself before the elf and his helpers did.

To his desperate fury, the second stone was also cold and dark, its former violet glow extinguished. From the vantage of the small rise where it stood, he looked across the night-dark central valley. Searching. With the moon set, it was only by the star's light that he could see the land below. But he didn't need even that much light to reveal the danger was far worse than he had feared. For the Seal of the Earth – a great dwarf-wrought obelisk – stood like a beacon in the center of the valley, was already surrounded by an eldritch glow.

He swore loudly. It had never glowed before. Only the three sealing stones had glowed, demonstrating their continuing hold on the central one. The mage had already released the third seal. The binding magic had to be almost broken; only one final step remained. He was too late.

Thorkaf ran down the narrow path, hurtling rocks and scrub brush in his haste, axe-handle gripped tightly in both hands.

There was a distinct possibility that the Alliance group had stirred the roosting drakes to the north when they breached the third seal. He had seen no dark wings against the stars, but that didn't mean black drakes weren't perched on the surrounding valley walls simply waiting for the elf and the others to finish the job of breaking the final seal first. A few of the older drakes might be cunning enough for that. It was a possibility that hastened his feet until he was racing across the unnaturally flat valley floor like the wind.

Once what was bound was released... there was no telling how the black drakes would react.

Or how he would react.

Because it was his master imprisoned here. And he would soon realize that his slave had not been the one to free him. Had made no attempt to aid his master at all. A swift death would be a mercy, but unlikely from his cruel master.

Hematus.

The vile one whose mark he bore on his neck, branding him as slave and pawn of a black dragon. One who had controlled his every move. Guided his every betrayal. Used him as his tool. Allowed him no will of his own once he had been given at his maturity to the Black Flight, along with many other promising young warriors of his clan by their power-mad Warchief, Rend Blackhand.

He shuddered with memories of the years of torment worked on him by his master, in form both dragon and human. A master imprisoned with his even more foul brother Blacklash within that central stone now. The both of them full dragons, centuries old, secure in their power and knowledge, scornful of lesser races. Once directly under Deathwing's command until they were given to Nefarian to better serve the Black Flight's ultimate plans. But sealed away for these three years now by the Dark Iron dwarves' magic. Sealed away after that terrible mission to Grim Batol went so wrong.

So very wrong that it gave him freedom and cost them theirs.

They would be enraged. They would know how they had fallen. Understand that they had been betrayed and abandoned by the one who had led their mission, Kalaran the Deceiver. But until they could reach the one they sought, their full power and fury would fall upon any being unlucky enough to be nearby as soon as they were unbound.

The three Alliance and the Red-sworn elf would not stand a chance. He had to stop them.

Fear gave his legs greater speed. Anger kept him going when his lungs began to burn. Anger for the nearly three years of freedom that he'd wasted keeping watch on these stones only to have someone slip in nearly beneath his nose to release the terror almost before he noticed.

A break in the ground grabbed at his feet. Making him stumble. He caught his balance frantically, driving himself on. Rock and bush and cactus seemingly rising up out of the darkness just to frustrate him. He remembered blue eyes watching him so carefully, wary but not afraid. The arch of willingly shared flesh that one heady night. Then the bitter, angry silence he had imposed when the elf revealed his own mark. So much might have been avoided entirely… if he'd only spoken up… had not been so angry…

No. Not anger. Fear. He'd been a coward. Afraid to risk his own freedom, bare and scant as it was.

But it was too late now for self-recriminations. The huge stone ahead flared up brightly, nearly lost beneath a pillar of twisted light now – gold and silver and violet streams of magic spiraling up into the night sky like a spear. Against that seething magical glow he thought he saw figures moving. More than just three… had the elf found more Alliance willing to take on his misguided task? It mattered not. They would all die.

A wave of magic pulsed past him, hard and sudden, the air itself crackling from the lash of power released.

"No!" he roared even as his denial was drowned out by the triumphant cry of a dragon.

Black wings spread through the air above with a booming sound, sweeping out with a speed that barely seemed possible as the first huge form plummeted from somewhere within the spire of magic toward the ground. A long neck turned west, dark red eyes that glowed from within opened wide. The mouth opened, another red glow, and the dragon bellowed again, the sound itself nearly a blow. Furious. Betrayed.

Blacklash. He recognized his master's foul brother even from this distance. He ran faster, side aching, lungs burning, hands tight on his axe.

"Kalaran! You left us!" the dragon bellowed as it stopped its fall, hovering a few feet above the ground. Tail lashing. Claws reaching. "Traitor! We come for you, Deceiver!"

Then there was a second pulse of magic; it blasted past him even as he stumbled, this time falling. Sliding on his side across the rocky ground from the force of his forward motion. Feeling a wrench in his soul, a burning on his neck where the acursed dragon-mark lay that eclipsed the sting of any mere scrapes or bruises as if they did not even exist.

He forced his watering gaze toward the sky, shouting out another denial. This second dragon was slower to recover, as if it was wounded, and he remembered why in a great rush as he lay gasping for breath on the ground.

Why he'd been able to deny his master's hold for so long.

How he had held himself as pathetically half-free as he had over these last three years.

It was by no true strength of his own. Not at all.

He remembered again how the spirit of the great red dragon had held Hematus firm while the Dark Iron mages chanted their spells. How the gigantic glowing form had caught Hematus in the air high over the thundering falls far to the north even as he tried to flee. Rending him wide with spectral claws that seemed to tear soul and will and power, but not flesh. How his master had screamed in agony and fallen through the air, limp and stunned when the spirit released him, the shock of it reverberating painfully through Thorkaf's own soul, bound to Hematus' as it was. Until the sealing-magic overtook Hematus and he vanished into this distant prison with his brother.

That great spirit had been that of Tyranastrasz. The aged red consort who had given his life for his Queen fighting Deathwing himself all those long years ago. Memories not his own pulsed within him. Livid. Raw. Ill and dying already, the great dragon had spent the last of his life gladly for even the barest chance to see his Queen free of the Dragonmaw's enslavement. And free of the Demon Soul's corruption.

It was Tyranastrasz's spirit who had found Thorkaf later where he writhed on the ground in agony and had soothed the damage to his soul enough for Thorkaf to hear his demands.

Gigantic translucent claws had enclosed him. Lifted his body close to a huge, piercing eye that seemed to see through him to draw out every terror he had ever had. "I spared you, orc, so that you can pay for what your kind have done to the Red Flight by watching over these two in their bindings. I charge you to ensure that they are not released ever again into this world."

Even though he was not of the Dragonmaw. And not only because he was reluctant slave to the Black Flight. He had been punished with this task for simply being an orc.

Over the dragon's bellowing now he heard battle cries. Shouts in Common. A low roaring. From the dwarf's bear? The Alliance were fighting. His own blood thundered in his ears. He fumbled on the ground beside him for his axe, picking it up and forcing himself to his feet despite the searing throb in his neck, the agony alight in his soul.

It was his master's fury. Calling him. Demanding his aid.

"Foolish insects! We will crush you!" Blacklash bellowed.

He ran toward the pillar again, a battle cry choking off in his throat as Blacklash landed on the ground in a great gust of dirt and dust, wings spread, claws swiping at the shapes standing before him. At a warrior in full plate armor, a great glowing sword in his hand, a heavy shield on his arm; he barely blocked that first blow, staggering back even as he shouted out a battle cry of his own. A human man whose shield flared suddenly with golden light, sparking off the dragon's claws. Not just a warrior; a paladin. The dwarf's bear was near the man, clawing at the dragon's side too. Several yards away, beyond the stone, stood the woman in robes, her staff glowing with golden light as she cast a protective spell over them both. The harsh crack of the dwarf's gun sounded over and over from the darkness somewhere beyond.

He searched wildly as he neared. And there was the night elf rogue. His blades dancing and flashing in the magical light as he sought any weakness in the dragon's hide as well, harrying it and disappearing nimbly before the swipe of claws could reach him. Useless.

There was a flash of blue-white light and a thick ring of ice appeared around the dragon, slowing him for a moment before he shattered free of it with an angry roar, melting shards scattering far around him. A mage's spell...

He shouted again as the paladin took advantage, slicing his sword into the dragon's shoulder. Not deep enough. Blacklash screamed again and smashed the dwarf's bear aside, just missing the paladin in his anger.

Above them came another roar of fury. Hematus had recovered. Thorkaf's neck throbbed a warning even as he charged forward.

His master's scream rent the air. "I can feel your presence, slave! Slay them now!"

As he charged he drew his axe back, clutching the handle tight in both hands. The paladin was before him, unaware of his approach, his back vulnerable. The night elf could not see him yet, from the far side of the dragon's bulk. Only the dwarf was a risk, with his gun.

Even through the dragon's roars, the clash of claw and metal, somehow above all else he heard the high elf's shocked, despairing cry. "Thorkaf! No!"

The paladin half spun toward him, alerted far too late.

"Lok'tar Ogar!" he shouted and leaped even as the dragon darted his head forward toward the distracted paladin, massive jaws opened wide to catch and crush him.

But Thorkaf struck first. With the weight of his body and all his strength behind it, he drove his axe deep into Blacklash's eye.

Blood and eye matter flew. Blacklash roared in agony and reared back. His axe ripped from his hands, Thorkaf was thrown aside like a rag-doll as the dragon crashed over on his side, sweeping his neck around and grinding his head against the ground in an attempt to rid himself of the pain. The dragon flailed, screaming. Wings and claws tore at the earth, throwing more dirt and dust high into the air.

From where he had fallen Thorkaf shouted, "The eyes! The weak point is the eyes!"

A shriek of rage came from above. "Treacherous slave! I will take special delight in killing you!" His master's lashing will rendered him silent, writhing and clutching at the mark on his neck in agony. But despite his pain, he rolled onto his side, forced his eyes open to see what happened.

Blacklash was still writhing and bellowing on the ground, snapping his neck back and forth, blood flying from his ruined eye. And then the night elf rogue appeared, lithe and quick. Racing up one taut leg and across the dragon's neck with shocking speed.

To fling himself, both swords aimed stiffly below him, toward the dragon's other eye.

Ichor and blood exploded from the dragon's head again. Blacklash reared back, bellowing in agony. Clawing far too late at the being who, with great courage and will, stayed atop his head and, even as great claws caught and ripped his back open, forced his swords down through the gore of the eye, through the fragile bone of the eye socket and finally into the dragon's brain.

Blacklash convulsed and fell. The huge body quivering through its death-throes like a minor earthquake.

Hematus screamed above them.

"Brother! Noooooooo! You wormssss! Die!" There were cries of relief from among the Alliance. The priestess shouted behind them, urgently. There was a brief scramble toward Blacklash's corpse. Then Hematus bathed his brother's body in searing black-tinged fire from above.

The death-scream of the night elf as he dissolved within those terrible flames pierced the air.

Thorkaf dragged himself to his feet, shuddering, the agony from his mark ebbing now that Hematus was distracted. But he wouldn't be for long, the orc knew.

A slim shape stood near the inert sealing stone. Pale eyes gleaming bright in the reflected flames. Garek. He staggered toward the elf. One arm broken and useless at his side from the fall, his leg twisted enough that walking was almost misery. It didn't matter. Death was coming. "Garek… you must make him land or he will burn us from the air!" Thorkaf shouted.

"Ssssslave!" The hissing, angry cry came from the beast above, cutting off the fall of flame abruptly. The gleaming red eyes turned toward him, narrowed with fury.

A flare of golden light surrounded the dragon above them, shockingly bright. The very air rang with the loud clash of holy magic against dark. He saw Hematus stagger in the air, struggle to keep his altitude for a moment, then recover, hissing. His guts churned and his heart raced with terror. It wasn't enough. The paladin could not do it alone.

The elf reached him then. Grabbed at his shoulder. He staggered against him. Barely aware of the arms that struggled to hold him up, failed. He fell to his knees hard. Dragging the elf with him. "Garek… freeze... wings," he gasped, looking into clear eyes gone wild and desperate.

The other blinked, nodded, then left him to sway alone on his knees. Standing up straight and tall in front of him. Facing the enraged dragon. Slim hands rising, already glowing blue-white. Chanting his spell aloud.

He found himself staring at the elf's taut back. At the cascade of bone-pale hair. The magic-gathering hands. All placed solidly between he and his master.

Garek gestured as if he were flinging something away and a lance of blue-white magic leaped across the sky. Striking the dragon's wing with a splash it turned instantly to a coating of ice wherever it touched, thick and heavy. Crippling the one wing instantly and sending Hematus plunging toward the ground.

The paladin struck in that moment too. His hammer of holy magic making the air crack and ring loudly again. Hematus roared in pain, in outrage, but even as he fell, lashed out again with his dark fire.

The paladin dodged, but it splashed beyond him, to their left. Missing them all, but drenching the land and lighting it afire. Lit by the sullen glow he saw Garek fling yet another thick lance of ice at Hematus' wing. Making certain it stayed useless. And then the dragon struck the ground.

The impact staggered them all. Garek stumbling back until Thorkaf braced him with his good arm, catching the elf about the waist.

"He is not done yet," Thorkaf warned hoarsely, even as Garek gathered himself.

The elf bared his blunt teeth at the thrashing dragon beyond in a snarl worthy of any orc. The paladin was already taking up position nearby, his shield at the ready, hands glowing with holy power as he warily watched Hematus. "Neither are we."

"My axe is lost… and your rogue…" Thorkaf bit off the rest of his words as Garek turned sharply to him and caught a handful of his beard, yanking his face as close to the orc's as he could get through Thorkaf's helm.

"This one is your master?" the elf demanded, eyes glittering and bright, expression set and cold.

Thorkaf met that icy glare steadily, heart thundering in his chest, the mark throbbing like a wound on his neck just above Garek's hold. "Yes."

The elf snarled, pushing away from Thorkaf to rise to his feet and face the dragon again even as the dwarf hunter and the human priestess appeared beside them. The hunter had a crude spear in his hands, taller than he was, pale and splintered and rough. Hastily made. Thorkaf knew that it couldn't be wood. There were no trees that straight in the Badlands. He felt a surge of hope.

"Is that spear of dragon-bone?" he asked.

The dwarf glared at him while Garek looked back at him in surprise. "It is."

Thorkaf straightened as best he could. "If your priestess can fix my wounds, I will use it."

Garek glared now too even as Hematus shook himself in the darkness beyond and began to rise to his clawed feet. "And if he just breathes fire on you?"

"Then I die with honor!" Thorkaf shouted at him, pain and regret and fury nearly choking him. "Elf, there is no time!"

"Let him try it," the woman said in clipped Orcish, startling him.

Her hair was gray beneath her hood, her face lined with human age. For a moment he wondered where she had learned his tongue. Then she turned to his arm, her lips already moving, her hands and staff glowing pure gold. The healing spell that cascaded over him was one of the most powerful he'd ever felt; he grit his teeth and bit back a cry as his bones shifted themselves back into place with terrible speed. His leg strengthened beneath him; his weariness fell away. Whoever this woman was, she was strong. He rose to his feet, reaching for the bone spear as he did so. The dwarf let him take it with an angry shake of his head, muttering sharp words in his own language as he reached back over his shoulder for his gun, slipping lightly-glowing bullets out of a pouch to load it again.

He hefted it in his gauntlet-covered hands, already judging the spear too unbalanced to throw. Even healed, he was in no way as fast as the night elf had been.

He strode forward, Garek at his side. They reached the paladin after a few steps just as Hematus rose up, roaring loudly. The wing Garek had frozen hung awkwardly at his side, useless. The black dragon swiveled his head around, searching. His red eyes glaring bright as he spotted them.

"Ssssooo there you are, sssslave," the dragon said, his voice barely more than a furious hiss. Thorkaf felt the sharp pulse of the mark on his neck, malign power flowing through it as Hematus tried once more to force him to his side. "You have forgotten who mastered you all those years ago, little orc… I will remind you… break you to my claw again… and then your punishment will be legendary..."

His body froze. Fighting the insidious pressure to step forward. Fighting against the familiar, long-feared power that threatened to devour him, to erase his will, to make him a slave again. Struggling until blood-rage nearly blinded him.

Then the paladin struck. The ring of the hammer sounded, the holy glow lighting up the dragon as he roared once more in pain and rage. Released from Hematus' direct focus, Thorkaf broke free of his call, staggering but not falling. The spear was still in his hands, Garek still at his side. What had felt like an eternity of struggle for him had taken only instants.

Shouting defiance, the elf mage sent ice at Hematus again. But the dragon spat dark fire at it, shattering the spell before it could reach him. Deadly power showered down toward them all, blackened red and shimmering blue, only to spatter harmlessly off a golden shield flung up by the priestess.

He knew it wouldn't be long before the dragon wore them down. No matter how strong or skilled they might be, there was always a finite limit to a mortal's power. Not so for a black dragon who could draw on the endless well of the earth itself – no matter how it screamed in protest. Something had to change. Quickly.

He stepped to the side with two long strides, getting before both the elf and the paladin, but at an angle. He let the spear droop in one hand, lifted the other, empty, toward the dragon.

"Master! I am here!" he shouted. As he hoped, ever-arrogant and disdainful of the power of mortals, Hematus' head swiveled toward him with a furious snarl. Away from Garek and the paladin. Who shouted too; angry and dismayed. He couldn't tell which shout was which. The priestess yelled and golden light flared beside him, over the others. Then came the pops of the dwarf's gunfire again, tearing uselessly small chips in the dragon's tough scales.

The dragon's eyes fixed on him, glowing with fury, the open mouth red with pending fire. "Wretched, disobedient slave! Grovel and beg my forgiveness and I may kill you quickly!"

He dropped to one knee, hand still outstretched as the dragon lunged toward him. Huge claws tearing up the ground in his haste, tail thrashing, frozen wing still dragging. A blue flash of ice slowed him only briefly, shattered to nothingness by the force of his charge. The paladin's holy hammer struck, his sword right behind it, rending hide and scale, but Hematus ignored them both, intent on punishing his defiant slave before all else.

Just as he'd hoped.

The dragon's mouth opened wide, fiery saliva dripping. Thorkaf stared deep into that maw, saw the flicker of flame growing within, and wasn't sure if Hematus intended to burn or devour him, or both. Any would be a fitting end for an honorless one such as him. Who had already failed his final chance at regaining that honor. With lies. Fear.

But he held his position even as his blood surged, battle-haze falling over his eyes, narrowing his vision to only the gleam of fang and fire… with the butt of the rough bone spear buried firmly in the ground behind him, braced upright across his bent thigh. The tip aimed straight down the charging dragon's throat.

The dragon reached him in a flurry of darkness and dirt and dull fire and thunder. Crashing over him in another instant. Breath like a plume of sulfur choking the air. Fangs gleaming brighter than the moon. Yet even as the great mouth closed down over him, the point of the spear entered the back of that gaping throat. He felt a wave of heat, damp and smothering, roll over him. Then a great crushing blow against his back; dragon-fangs grinding hard on the heavy dragon-mail he wore. Pain. Crushing. Sharp. His own death loomed. But almost at once a howl of pain and rage that nearly deafened him broke over him too. Blood and ichor and molten saliva splattered him. Searing him.

Golden light flared everywhere, blinding him even as he pushed up with a great war-cry, driving forward against the dragon's futile retreat, forcing the spear further in and up. As far as he could into vulnerable flesh before he was swept off the ground by the dragon's sheer bulk, and hurled aside again as Hematus threw his head to the side in agony. The bellow was loud and terrifying as Thorkaf flew through the air, still bathed in golden light. He hit the ground hard, but barely felt it, cushioned by the priestess' shield. He scrambled to his feet, turning to face his master again. His hands empty now. Weaponless. He bunched them into fists, determined to strike again any way, any how. And die like a warrior, in battle.

But Hematus was not pursuing him. Instead he had reared back high on his hind legs and was clawing desperately at the bone spear lodged in his mouth. Distracted by the pain his slave had dealt him, he foolishly ignored the threat of the others.

The paladin shouted again. Words that sounded almost like a song to Thorkaf's ringing ears. Then the priestess joined him. Their voices rising, strong and true, twining together into a paean of power that called a pillar of white-gold fire down from the sky to strike the dragon a staggering blow. Hematus bellowed again, recoiling further. And the paladin charged forward, sword raised, shield thrown aside, blue bolts of ice streaking past him from the elf to strike the dragon's upper limbs, his claws, freezing them for precious seconds as the human raced across the churned-up ground toward that arched, exposed throat.

The paladin's sword flared bright silver-white as it sank through the tough black hide and deep into flesh. Hematus shrieked, jerking aside instinctively, inadvertantly yanking the glowing blade through his own throat. Aiding the paladin's blow even as he tried to avoid it. Blood spurted from the wound, thick and dark, surging out of the dragon's body like a fountain. Roaring and flailing, he fell onto his side with a shattering crash.

The paladin fell away, thrown aside. Hematus roared for a moment more, the ground quaking with the great body's final agonies. Blood showered around them all, hot and foul. And then with a last great liquid wail, the dragon fell still.

Thorkaf fell to his knees, coughing against the sudden surge of pain in his back, in his ribs. Closing his arms around them as his gaze fixed on the dark bulk that lay beyond. Waiting for a sign that it was only a ploy. A trick. Afraid to believe, for a long, breathless string of moments, while his blood roared in his ears, throbbed in his chest, that it was true. That they had somehow defeated both dragons. Defeated his master.

The elf appeared before him, pale hair spattered with streaks of black dragon's blood, his face drawn with weariness and determination. The other dropped down beside him instantly, catching at his shoulders as he swayed on his knees.

"Thorkaf! By Eonar, that was foolish." He turned a moment to shout over his shoulder. "Calrissa, to me!" The blue eyes were dim, narrowed, focused on his chest. The wiry, stupidly long brows lowered with concern. Thorkaf coughed again, and something thick and hot bubbled up, running out of his mouth. It tasted of iron. Blood.

He lifted one hand toward the elf. Caught his shoulder. Squeezed. The blue eyes that lifted to meet his steady gaze were dark with anguish.

"Garek… my honor… redeemed... I am… free," he said, the words catching in his filling throat.

"Be silent!" the elf snarled at him, turning to shout again, more desperately this time. "Calrissa! Devonar!"

The night dimmed around him. Sound fading away. Narrowing the world. Until all Thorkaf could see was Garek's blue eyes fixed upon him. Furious. Desolate. Afraid. Because of him. And he wondered, as the blackness and pain took him finally, how that had come to be.

~*~

He woke slowly. He was lying on something that was not bare earth. His armor was gone. He felt warm and comfortable, his mind at peace. Was he dead? He opened his eyes to see the inside of his own tent. Not dead. Alive.

"Garek?" he said, his voice rough from disuse.

"The mage had to leave, orc," a female voice said in her accented Orcish. "He instructed us to tend to you." He turned his head to find the human priestess seated just beyond the opened flaps of his tent, her stafff lying across her lap, her hood down revealing the iron-gray of her hair. Beyond her he could see a fire in the – presumably cleaned – pit and a pair of unsaddled horses tied to the jokal tree. The paladin stepped into view, sword sheathed at his side, and looked curiously inside at Thorkaf.

The mage was gone. Again. And had asked these humans to make certain he, Thorkaf, lived. A part of him he didn't want to examine seethed at that, though most of him was still too weary to care. He looked away from the human man and let his gaze meet the woman's.

"I am alive," he said, feeling no need to rise in defense even though they were human and he an orc. He was tired and they had been comrades in battle, however briefly. The elf had trusted them. The woman's mouth quirked up on one side in a half-smile, half-grimace at his statement.

"Yes," she said. "Though it was a near thing. Dragon bites don't usually leave enough behind to heal, but you were lucky. A fang just missed your heart."

"So it did," he said flatly, aching inside though he did not know why. It was not a physical pain and all he should feel was relief now anyway. Relief that his master was dead and he was free again. Free of his slavery to the Black Flight and free of the geas Tyranastrasz had laid upon him to guard their prison. He let his eyes close again and sighed.

He heard the priestess rise and come inside the tent. Her hand rested briefly on his forehead. He allowed the touch, not even flinching at the cool press of her human skin on his.

"Well, your fever is gone." She made a low noise in her throat and moved back. "You will likely be weak for a few more days, but with the supplies here you should be able to manage on your own now."

He forced his eyes open again, frowning. The woman stood over him, that odd half-smile on her face again, her staff held upright beside her. The paladin stayed outside, watching and listening, but clearly unable to understand what they were saying. The priestess didn't seem even slightly concerned that she was within striking range of someone who should be an enemy to her.

"I am in your debt, human," he said, catching her gaze. Her eyes were a clear, pure gray. Her own gaze held steady as it met his.

She frowned. "By the Light, you owe us nothing. Without your aid the black dragons would have overwhelmed us and all of us would be dead and not just Methanidis Shadeleaf." She shook her head wryly. "If anyone owes us, it's Garek Lightbourne for not realizing just how strong they were, and, rest assured, I'll be taking payment out of his hide sometime in the future instead."

His mouth twitched at her words. Already imagining the elf's indignant consternation to be upbraided by this stern human woman.

She chuckled darkly then and Thorkaf looked at her with a touch of wary alarm. "Besides, I'm rather enjoying the irony that a Blackrock orc helped protect Loch Modan from invasion by dragons. Ironhaft is still chewing nails over that one I'm certain." She turned away, laughing, to say something to the paladin in their own language, missing Thorkaf's blanching shock over her casual revelation of his oldest secret. The clan he had been born into was not welcomed much anywhere on Azeroth – most especially not, rumor had it, in Warchief Thrall's new Horde. Not that he had ever been to Kalimdor to discover the truth of that rumor.

"You are mistaken. I have no clan," he said flatly, hoping to quell any further mention of Blackrock. Any allegiance he owed to Rend Blackhand and the Dark Horde had been forfeit from the moment his own clan brothers had held him down for Hematus' mark to be seared into his skin. The woman turned back to him, brows drawn as she searched his grim expression. But finally she just shrugged.

"As you wish, Thorkaf Dragoneye – which is a name that seems far more appropriate for you anyway." She smiled wryly again, the gleam in her eyes oddly compassionate. As if she somehow understood some of what he would not say.

He just grunted. "For honor's sake, I would ask your names as well."

The priestess moved outside the tent, taking a place next to the paladin who was still glancing curiously between the two of them. He was younger than the priestess, but no stripling, black haired and bearded. And clearly sensing the odd undercurrents in the air but missing the details in their Orcish speech. She put her hand on the man's shoulder and nodded her head to Thorkaf. "This is Hoyle Devonar and I am Calrissa Trelane, and we are both members of the Argent Dawn."

He frowned again, deeper now, and pushed himself up on his elbows to stare out at them in confusion. "Argent Dawn? What business do hunters of the undead have with dragons?"

She traded rueful looks with the man who had clearly recognized the name of his organization. "The Dawn seeks aid against the Scourge where we can; what allies could be better than those of the Flight of Life itself?"

He had no response for that, not that she truly seemed to expect one. He sat up slowly, testing the strength of his limbs. They seemed whole. With only a twinge or two in rib and back to remind him of his desperate recklessness. Outside, the priestess and the paladin began to gather up their gear, clearly preparing to leave.

He watched them go about their tasks in silence. Then realized, after a few minutes of staring, that his mind was still reeling from the simple fact that he yet lived. He had fully expected to die in battle with his master. That he had not left him with something of a problem.

What to do with his life now that he was finally – truly – free.

-end-


End file.
